.CO ;LD ;00 :LO 100 •CD The MteWeddang CO M. P. Sbiel COLONIAL EDITION THE WHITE WEDDING Crown 8vo, cloth, 6s. Catharine. By L. Parry Truscott. The Speculator. By the Author of "The Soul Market," Olive Christian Malvery. The Queen's Friend. By the Author of ' ' The King's Wife," Helene Vacaresco. Lethbridg-e of the Moors. By the Author of "The Salving- of a Derelia," Maurice Drake. The Marriage Broker. By Florence War- den. Lady Lee. By Florence Warden. Robert Thorne. The Story of a London Clerk. By Shan F. Bullock. The Crowned Skull. By the Author of "Lady Jim of Curzon Street," Fergus Hume. A Sentimental Season. By the Author of "Mrs Elliker's Reputation," Thomas Cobb. Tangled Destinies. By Dick Donovan. A New Atonement, By the Author of "Juicy Joe," James Blyth. The Tears of Desire. By the Authors of "A Widow by Choice," Heath Hosken and Coralie Stanton. The Chain Invisible. By the Author of "When it was Dark," Ranger Gull. The Given Proof. By the Author of "As Dust in the Balance," Mrs H. H. Penrose. The Fighting1 Wintersens. By Charles Gleig. NEW EDITIONS 2835 Mayfair. 5th Edition. By Frank Richardson. Six Women. By Victoria Cross. Life's Shop Window. By Victoria Cross. John Johns. By Frederic Carrel. 2s. 6d. net. T. WERNER LAURIE, Clifford's Inn, London Xaurie'0 Colonial THE WHITE WEDDING By M. P. SHIEL Author of "The Last Miracle" COPYRIGHT EDITION All Rights Reserved THIS Edition is issued for sale and circulation in the British Colonies and India, and must not be im- ported into the Continent of Europe or the United States of America. LONDON T. WERNER LAURIE CLIFFORD'S INN EC 6037 CONTENTS Chapter I Shan's the {Man Page i II Shan Adance 17 III Shan in *A5tion 30 IV Shan maizes a Vow 48 V Shan in a Net 69 VI Shan all Enmeshed 87 VII Shan both Hot and Cold 98 VIII Shan Vanished 123 IX Shan and Songs in the Night 136 X Shan and no Songs 1 54 XI Shan and Anne 1 74 XII Shan and an Old Woman 1 83 XIII Shan Bankrupt 206 XIV Sban Deep in it 214 XV Sban Night-walkj 235 XVI Shan T)e camps 249 XVII Shan Relates 262 XVIII Shan Awaiting 279 XIX Shan in Luck 290 XX Shan Sulks 311 XXI Shan has a Visitor 320 THEWHITE WEDDING I SHAN'S THE MAN ARTHUR GORDRIDGE, the young master of Glanncourt, just getting better of a sickness that had brought him home from his regimental district, lay on a sofa during the forenoon of that 1 8th of September 1899 whose Times on the floor at his feet was furious with the news that President Kruger had refused to accept any of our propositions made to him on the eighth of the month; but even these growlings of the out- break now near could not too greatly jingoize Gordridge's mind that morning, and his pile of papers having slipped off the sofa, his looks hankered towards the door. Presently when the door opened his eye brightened: but the young lady who came in was not the one whom he longed to see. "How are you this morning, Arthur ?" she asked. 2 THE WHITE WEDDING " Well, I think I begin now to feel some life in me again, thanks, Anne," he answered. " Aunt Margaret asks you how you are, and whether there will be war." " Well, I suppose there will be war; it will be intolerable if there is not after the insolence of these little farmer-people." " I wonder if you will have to go to fight?" " Not very likely." " But if your company goes. . . ." " Even in that case .... I am on the sick-list, Anne." " But you'll soon be better, and having no special temptation to stay . . ." " Don't worry, Anne, just mention to mother what I say . . . Why, by the way, doesn't some- body remove this tray from my side?" " You might have rung . . . /'ll take it." " As you like." " Or would you prefer that Rosie — ? By the way, talking of Rosie, have you heard about her? You have been so much abroad, and so chippy since you came, that I dare say you know precious little about us others here, really. But perhaps you are not much interested in your mother's pantins, Arthur." " I'm sure I don't know why you choose to SHAN'S THE MAN 3 call Rosie a fantin" answered Arthur, " she is mother's adopted daughter, precisely as you are, and one of the family." Anne Hine smiled at this: the slightest minx of not yet twenty-three years, anaemic, neat as an ear-ring; plain but quaint; with lines about the mouth which meant biting, meant impish; and some glint in the gold of those golden eyes which meant — genius? some shriek in that region. " Well," said she, " I must now set about to adjust myself to this new point-of-view about my Rosie, not a toy, but * one of the family.' Her father was a twenty-acre farmer on one of the estate-farms .... But have you been told, Arthur, that Rosie is to be married?" " Rosie?" " Yes." " To be married?" " Yes, Arthur." " Ah, I hadn't been told. Well, she seems a sweet little body, so I don't wonder; I only hope it is to some possible sort of man." " You remember Shan O'Shannon, don't you? It is to him. He has lately been made head- keeper, though an unmarried man, and, yes, he's a ' tidy ' man, as^they say here, though wedded 4 THE WHITE WEDDING to Socialistic notions; Aunt Margaret, in fact, has lately had the thought of getting him off the estate for airing his arguments round about, but she didn't after, he is such a popular chap." " O'Shannon: I don't remember," said Arthur. " What, not that man with his thumb shot off? He turns up like clock-work twice a day to ask after you . . ." " Oh, you mean ' Bull's head ' ! " exclaimed Arthur, " that for some reason was the only name he was known by when I was a boy; of course I remember! why, the fellow used to follow me about like a spaniel, our whole youth almost was spent with one another. You mean ' Bull's-head'! That's all right! He, of course, could never do for Rosie." " But, then, it must be all wrong, Arthur, seeing that they are affianced," was Anne Hine's answer. " But that is too absurd for words! Mother would never entertain such a suggestion. . . . First place, the fellow is short of a thumb — " " Oh, Arthur, it isn't the thumb that makes the patriarch. And if it has been a bargain for years, Arthur, between Aunt Margaret and the man . . . . ? For that matter, O'Shannon is a SHAN'S THE MAN 5 sober chap, grand at 'kippuring', with some cash in the bank, and — " She was interrupted by a shy rap, and agush with blushes Rosie Jones entered, a girl of not much more than seventeen: upon which Anne said keenly to Arthur : "Here is Rosie come, you see, of her own accord ... I will tell Aunt what you say," and out she hurried, though outside in the corridor she stood hearkening, while Rosie asked Arthur how he was that morning. " Much better thanks, Rosie," mumbled Arthur, holding a newspaper anew before his face, afresh interested in President Kruger. She, for her part, raised the tray, but re- placed it on the table, in order with a bent head to rearrange the cups, etc., on it, while Arthur looked at the paper, till, as she again raised the tray, he said to her: " So you are engaged, Rosie?" " Who is, Arthur?" asked Rosie, again getting rid of the tray. " Isn't that so?" " Why, no, Arthur." " You give me your assurance as to that?" " I'm not engaged to anyone, Arthur, I'm sure. What could have made you think such a thing?" 6 THE WHITE WEDDING " Isn't there something about a man named O'Shannon, a gamekeeper?" "About Shan O'Shannon? Oh, I am not, Arthur! The man has intrigued in that direc- tion, but I have never agreed to such a thing." " That's all right, then ! I was misinformed, and I am awfully — relieved." " Oh, it is dreadful of them to say such things of me! " said Rosie in distress: " I am not en- gaged to Shan O'Shannon, I have never uttered one word to make him think — " " Well?" " Well, to be frank, one Thursday evening during the week before you came, he encoun- tered me in the south shrubbery as I was coming home from some sick villagers, and urged me so earnestly, that I — don't quite remember what I said. I told him that Mama Gordridge would hardly entertain the thought of my getting married at my age, but that — " "Tell me?" " But that — I would think of it, I said." " Well, but that was no promise at all," said Arthur; " you, of course, are not to blame if the man chooses to take all sorts of delusions into his ridiculous brain. Does he fondly imagine, then, that that was a promise?" SHAN'S THE MAN 7 " I hardly know/' replied Rosie, " for I have tried not to be alone with him again, but he has been so light-hearted since then, that everybody imagines that we are engaged. But ah, we are not." " Of course you are not. Ton are not made for such as Shan O'Shannon, Rosie. Has he — had this craze in his nut a long time?" " Yes, he and I happen to be cousins, and they say that since I was six he got it into his brain that I belong to him, and he wouldn't marry anybody, waiting till I grew up. But Nurse Curtis says that you, Arthur, will never let him take me away from the Hall." " Nurse Curtis was never so right in her life, Rosie . . . Do you see that portrait there?" "That one?" " Yes, that with the rapier by the armour. His name was the same as mine — ArthurFraser, he fought at Blenheim, and was the very best of us all, not only a soldier, but a poet, a poli- tician, a gallant, and, above all, a jolly good fellow: I defy anyone to say less of him. Well, he married a farmer's daughter because it appeared proper to him, because he was pleased to; and it turned out quite bravely, and blood of hers now runs in my veins." " Yes, Arthur," she murmured, her brow 8 THE WHITE WEDDING turned downwards, but the thought rushed athwart her gorgeous head: " That one's mo- ther was not this Mrs Gordridge though." "Well, what he did," said Arthur, sitting impulsively up, " / can do, too, for I am nothing like such a swell as he was, and I'm certain that his girl was never half so delicious as mine, nor he ever half so much gone on her . . . Rosie, come tome!" Rosie stood shaking, looking at the roses incased in her nails. " Come, will you?" Rosie would not budge. " What a dear you are!" breathed Arthur, as it were secretly, leaning towards her in a craze and heat: " do you realise that you are the very nicest thing that was ever created? Those eyes, so large and arch, the throat in cream . . . cruel of you to be so sweet ! If you won't come to me, I shall jump up to you . . ." Rosie tried to speak, but failed. " What did you say?" asked Arthur. She tried again, but all that Arthur could catch were the two words: " Mama Gordridge." " Yes, ' Mama Gordridge,' " said he: " but don't trouble about her now, this is really our own little business only, for all the world are SHAN'S THE MAN 9 outsiders, and we two Chinese to everybody. Only be sure that I really do love you — " " Oh, it's too much! " wailed Rosie, suddenly covering her face, whereat he leapt up impul- sively and strained her to him, murmuring: " no, don't be afraid of anything, only let me once know that you love me for my own self." " Can one help it?" spoke Rosie to his neck, crying, " I always did . . ." " What, before I came this time?" " Yes, always, I used to cry . . ." " Well, I must have been pretty stupid: I used to see without noticing you, I suppose, a little person with cinderella dresses round spider's pins, eh? never dreaming into what a dear dar- ling you would suddenly dart up . . ." " No, you didn't, but this Shan O'Shannon did, notice me, Anne has been so inspired as to observe, and fixed upon me when I was little like that, and waited for me, and therefore, she declares — Oh, they will take me from you, I know, and then I shouldn't know what to do! Mama Gordridge — " " No Mama Gordridge: I shan't hear . . ." " If you keep kissing me, I shall get a sore on my lip, and then everybody will know what we have been up to." io THE WHITE WEDDING " A sore ! why a sore?" " It's a strange thing," said Rosie, half laugh- ing, half crying, " when I was a child, as sure as I played kiss-in-the-ring, so sure I got a sore on my lip." " You arch darling! but— " But they were scared by a cry of feigned surprise in the room made by Anne who had strolled in, whereat Rosie, all inflamed, made her escape, while Anne Hine with her smile re- marked: "Why, you are up, Arthur, isn't it rather soon?" " I — it is of no importance — what is it, Anne ?" asked Arthur. " A man who is eager to see you is out there, so I came to know — " " Which man?" " Shan O'Shannon, Arthur." "Eager? O'Shannon? to see me? whatever for?" asked Arthur. " He has brought you — a fish, Arthur, and a brace of partridges." " Very charming of Mr O'Shannon . . . Well, you may let him in." Arthur returned to his sofa, drew his rug again over his legs, and a moment afterwards Shan O'Shannon entered: a fellow slight, tall, SHAN'S THE MAN 11 lithe and light-footed, his eyes light-blue, bright with batteries of fun under a broad brow, one of them somehow looking narrower than the other, adding to their twinkle some wink of knowing- ness, and to their humour 'cuteness. He came bowing himself down, bright of eye, holding in one hand his cap with a brace of wild-fowl, in the other a four-foot salmon inside a putrod crate ..." Pleased am I, Mr Arthur, to see you down at last! ... I don't believe you have wholly ceased to remember me, sir." " I remember you quite well, O'Shannon," said Arthur. " Well, you have had a longish bout of it in bed, and understanding that you came down yesterday, I've taken this liberty — " " That's all right, O'Shannon: you are very obliging. Those for me, I suppose?" " Well, it seems a cheeky thing, too, to make a gentleman a present of two of the best of his own ground-game, but they came so tempting to the gun just now, I said I'd dare; as for the salmon, that I'm prouder of, for it's pretty difficult to light upon a quite clean one about this season of the year, but this one is just fresh-run." " Yes, he seems fine. You are — very good. And how are the river and the birds?" 12 THE WHITE WEDDING " Birds could hardly be finer, but Severn's rather late and dry this year, fish haven't come up plentiful, and the main of the spawning should be far on in November . . . Ah, it's many a good salmon you and I have landed as lads together, sir . . ." " I suppose so; yes, that is certainly so; I don't forget, O'Shannon." " It used to be < Bull's-head ' in those first days, sir, not c O'Shannon,' till you got home for your first holidays from Rugby, then c Bull's- head ' turned into £ Bucephalus,' for you had learned that ' Bucephalus ' and ' Bull's-head ' are the same words, and it was ' Bucephalus ' this, and c Bucephalus ' that, all over the place." " Ah, that was some time ago, I'm afraid." " True enough, sir, more's the grief, for there are no trees so green any more now, nor one can't ever feel over again for fresh people and scenes the same as for those we originally came across, sir." " I suppose not, O'Shannon." " You now, Mr. Arthur, no doubt there's many a gentleman just as fine a fellow, take them all round, as you are, if the truth were only known; but to me they'd never be so, because to my young imagination you were a being to be SHAN'S THE MAN 13 looked after and worshipped above all others. It's a foolhardy* thing, too, but let that be my plea for forcing myself upon you, sir." Arthur, peering under his eyes at Shan, beheld anew the joyous boy whom, because of his priesthood of sky, storm, soil, his naivete joined with depth, he had once called " patri- archal," cunning to trap, course, climb, the bane of badger, hare, otter, who had been the humble husband of his boyhood. " Bucephalus " had very clearly been doing some reading since then, and now there was a crowded moustache ending in corkscrew undulations; but here was the same brow broad and low, rather treble voice, pale face, dance of eye, flight of foot; and Arthur's inwards warmed with friendship, in spite of his ominous consciousness of Rosie and of crude fruit to accrue. " How long since you last saw me?" he asked. " Just six years now," said Shan: " that was at Lydney station on September the 1 8th, 1 893, the night you passed through on your way to India; and I caught a glimpse of you again the night you came home ill on the 2nd, a fortnight ago, but you didn't notice me." * Foolish. 14 THE WHITE WEDDING " You have quite a memory for dates !" " I could give you a statement with dates subjoined for every voyage you've taken, and for every page of your life. We have not been so far apart as you may fancy, for here's your photograph in the Eton jacket which you gave me when you were fourteen and three months: I've always kept it in my pocket." " Yes, that undoubtedly seems to be I, O'Shannon — quite so. And — how have you been doing all these years?" " Jolly, sir, thank you. Mrs. Gordridge has been marvellously good to me when other folks have had to groan under her pretty cruel rule; I have two married kippurs under me, and I live a free life in the bit of country that I love." " That's all right, then; and before I go away again I intend to add to your prosperity more than you perhaps expect, O'Shannon, so that you will do quite well on the whole." " It's the same generous Mr. Arthur as ever, you see!" cried Shan, while a light started to his eyes. " Not that I have much to crave for, nor would change places now with any man alive, for the streak of luck which I scarcely allowed my- self to dream of came to me just the week pre- ceeding your coming — " " Oh?" SHAN'S THE MAN 15 " I mean the young girl that during thirteen years and more — No doubt you have seen my cousin, Miss Jones, since you have come down, sir?" " I have seen her, of course." " She is what Shan-Bucephalus has been the fisher-lad to win for himself, then, though Heaven only knows how such a thing has come about, for it's a long sight beyond what such as I ever had the title to look out for, any way." Arthur was silent, till with rather reserved eyelids he murmured: " Has the girl given her word to marry you?" " No, not exactly that, may be, but going on in that neighbourhood, thank God," said Shan: " she's young yet, and there's a year or two's waiting to endure, but it will be well in the end." "Provided you contrive to get Mrs. Gor- dridge's consent, O'Shannon," said Arthur; "it is well to be ambitious, but Miss Jones is almost as good as Mrs. Gordridge's adopted daughter, remember." " But, sir, I have every reason to believe that Mrs. Gordridge won't be saying no to this — " " Still, Mrs. Gordridge is queer, O'Shannon, Mrs Gordridge is queerish: I should not build any wild hopes — " " Yes, but—" 1 6 THE WHITE WEDDING " Well, I am obliged for your presents," muttered Arthur now, impulsively throwing himself round, turning his back to Shan, and ending the interview, whereat Shan looked at him rather dumbfoundered, rather hurt, then placing the presents on a table, bowed, and passed out. He had already reached the outer hall-region when, to have speech with him, pelted Anne Hine, who after a few moments sent him flying with this whisper pealing in his ear: " Give up hope of Miss Jones, O' Shannon — there is Another"-, and that same afternoon Mrs. Gor- dridge, too, was able to gather from Anne that Rosie had been undergoing her son's embraces in the book-room. 17 II SHAN ADANCE As for the sturdy and sterling President Kruger, God, thirsting to precipitate his presidency, had first spurred him dog-mad. On the 2ist the Raad of the Orange Free State, having assembled, in a startling manner manifested jaundice against England, and the night after a Cabinet Council was called in Whitehall in order now to send out another and more wrathful note to the Transvaal. During all which, news of a movement of British troops was being bruited from Natal, troops were en route to Africa from Britain, and clamorous was the rumour of it, for everybody was declaring: " there will be trouble." " Wouldn't they be put down sharply, those Boers, if I had the handling of them ! " remarked Mrs. Gordridge to her son during the gloaming of the 23rd, before the dinner-gong had sounded: " how long, Arthur, will the war last when it comes off?" " Certainly not more than a month, mother," answered Arthur, " they are only a mob." " Arthur, give me to know definitely now 1 8 THE WHITE WEDDING whether you will be going, if your company is ordered out." " Not unless I am quite well, mother. We have spoken of that before. I feel no over- powering impulse, really, to help in the mowing down of a crowd of peasants." " But it is precisely a peasant for whom you are staying behind! " " This is hardly pleasant, mother," laughed Arthur, walking about; " even if it be on that account, isn't it rather a shame to call Rosie a peasant now? her speech, her throat — it is merely a prejudice: we are all made of the same flesh and blood, after all." " We are, and yet we aren't, are we, Gross?" said Mrs. Gordridge, chuckling, stroking one of her three Japanese dogs: " I am a peer's daugh- ter, aren't I? and Mr. Arthur has noble blood, and should be good. He will go and butcher Boers or anybody else when his mother begs him to." "Yes, mother," said Arthur, laughing, " but your habit of governing has become so confirmed at present that it is apt to be grotesque. Do re- member one's age. You shouldn't, really. What, for example, has become of poor Rosie these last two days?" SHAN ADANCE 19 " Hasn't the child been in her own room? I fancy so. . . ." " What, a prisoner?" " I recommended her to stay there for the present, and I take it that she has. There's nothing to be shocked at in that." " But don't be rough on her, -mother, I entreat you, or you force me to interfere. ... It is so useless, too, for I have really decided to marry her, and you should not try — " "But who is trying to stop him?" cried Mrs. Gordridge, pointing at Arthur her ebony stick, " I an old dowager with the gout? try to stop a goring bull? Boys will be boys, won't they, Gross? And where the race is pig-headed, the sons will have their way — unless an even pigger head intervenes." These last words were mut- tered, as a servant entered to announce " Dr. Blood and the Rev. Mr. Orrock," visitors who, unloved by Arthur, drove him out to the lawn, where in the twilight he had a talk with the head-gardener, while in Mrs. Gordridge's cosy corner she and her two cronies laid their heads together on the matter of Arthur. " He doesn't mean to go to any war, I can see," Mrs. Gordridge said to them: "if I could once get him well off, the moment his back was 20, 20 THE WHITE WEDDING turned I should marry Rosie to Shan O'Shannon, and so throw off the whole burden of it. But he very sensibly prefers kissing to camping, so something else will have to be done." " Moreover, there will be no war," remarked Dr. Blood, a ruddy mass of a man; " Providence will never permit such a scourge." " He will drag in his * Providence,' you see, Margaret," murmured the clergyman, who was a fair-faced patrician with the fine smile of a prince of the church. " Let me assure you, Richard," said Dr. Blood heatedly, " that Margaret believes in a God above us, if you do not." " Margaret," answered the clergyman, " hap- pens to be a woman-of-the-world, and her very proper belief in a God above us is tinctured with all the recent culture and criticism — " " You are not to squabble, you two," said Mrs. Gordridge: "it is becoming too unbear- able, this head-breaking brangle about God and drugs: I wish you wouldn't when I'm about." " I am done," said Dr. Blood: "though I'd let any fair-minded man decide whether the two positions which I have always taken up are not in accordance with the latest views, namely, SHAN ADANCE 21 that drugs are a hoary superstition, and that there's a just God overhead." " Then, why does he daily administer drugs!" cried Mr. Orrock. " Tell him because one must administer some- thing, John," said Mrs. Gordridge, chuckling: " he administers the sacrament, you administer drugs, I administer the Gordridge family: any- thing for an honest living." " It is just a question of the popular prejudice with physicians," said Dr. Blood: "folks insist upon being dosed, and the physician doses them; also there are two or three good drugs, digitalis, quinine; but catch Margaret or me gulping drugs! because I am an enlightened, modern person — " " Aye, with a belief in ghosts," fleered Mr. Orrock. " The fact, of course, is, that no man really disbelieves in drugs; at this moment I have the advantage to bear within me two tablespoonfuls of blood mixture, four drams of codliver oil, and three little liver pills, whose kindly action — " " Well, it is a cheap way of dining, Richard," said Mrs. Gordridge: " cheap and nasty." " You see, Richard, Margaret merely laughs," said Dr. Blood: "talk of superstition! he can't 22 THE WHITE WEDDING believe in it! it is merely done to displease others!" " Superstition should not be considered, a crime by a believer in miracles" observed the clergyman. " But doesn't the man preach miracles every Sunday of his life, Margaret?" cried the doctor. " And you, John," said Mrs. Gordridge, " lead your children to hear him, knowing that he doesn't mean it. There's nothing sound in our society, I say, the whole head's sick. Otherwise, wouldn't I allow Arthur to marry Rosie Jones? But having lost the power to do anything true and genuine through being impregnated in our cradles with humbug and cowardice, we are mainly doctors who scorn drugs, and preachers who jeer at believers, and aristocrats who secretly know that the creed of Keir Hardie is true: so stop your wrangling, and let's go on plotting together against this natural son of mine — I don't mean that he's not born in wedlock, because he was." Mrs. Gordridge chuckled in her jocular dry way, and her two councillors, sagacious enough provided the talk did not touch upon the questions of God and drugs, now laid their heads together anew with her on the war and Arthur. A cloud overhung SHAN ADANCE 23 that house; and this council of the 23rd was the second, the first having taken place five days before, convened by the old lady in a hurry on hearing from Anne Hine the horrible story of her son and Rosie. " If Rosie could be sent away to, say, the King-Crolys," Dr. Blood now said, "without his knowing?" " Rosie would only write to him," remarked Mr. Orrock, "and he would fly after her. He must not be given to imagine that we even dream of balking him, or — you know the Gordridges. There must be one master-stroke, effective and final on this side, or we only make matters twenty times worse by meddling." " Good," said Mrs. Gordridge, "but can you suggest the ' master-stroke '? Let's do master- strokes, Richard, not dream them all day long.' " It's a fearful thing! " remarked Dr. Blood. " I never was confronted with such a crux," observed Mr. Orrock. "The wonder is that he purposes — wedlock. Wedlock is not the usual solution in such accidents to the affections." " Just listen to the gay Herr Faustus," said Mrs. Gordridge: " he wants Arthur to trifle with that poor child's life. I shall tell your wife, Richard." 24 THE WHITE WEDDING " No, oh no," protested the clergyman, " you misunderstand me, I only observe — " " But supposing he does marry her — " began Dr. Blood. "Supposing he doesn't, John!" said Mrs, Gordridge sharply, " it simply will not happen, since I couldn't endure it, and it is quite useless to suppose what can't be." " But even if Arthur persists in his will to stay at home," suggested Mr. Orrock, " could not Rosie be secretly married to O'Shannon?" " It could hardly be done," replied Mrs. Gordridge. " I have been giving it some thought — not with Arthur anywhere in Eng- land; but I'll tell you what: I believe I could succeed in whipping the lady quietly off to my sister Sheila in Quang Chow, and Sheila could then be counted upon to keep her dark, even if Arthur were to scent her out and fly after her out there — there's my master-stroke: it is bold, but — how does it strike you?" " Good, good," said Mr. Orrock. " Good, good," added Dr. Blood, " couldn't be bettered — " this being, indeed, the finish of nearly all the boards-of-three at Glanncourt, Blood£and Orrock following with cheers her whom they were called to lead: for, more SHAN ADANCE 25 masterful and fertile than they, Mrs. Gordridge always first determined her path, and only afterwards, from old wont since her girl-days, invited their guidance. " If Arthur can be got to go to the war," she said, " it will be better to marry Rosie to Shan O'Shannon than to banish the poor child out to Quang Chow; but if he doesn't go away, there's nothing else than the banishment, and it shall be done." The gong was now sounding for dinner, Arthur walked in, and the group of five moved toward the dining-room, encountering in a passage Anne Hine, at whom Mrs. Gordridge threw the whisper: " See yourself about Rosie's dinner before you sit," so Anne ran off, arranged this, and then ran upstairs. Rosie's door was slightly open, the electric-light, supplied by a power-station in the house, had been switched on within, and Anne, approaching warily, was able to spy Rosie with her nicest hat on step- ping like a peahen to and fro before a mirror, and now Rosie made a curtsey backward before her own beauty, like dames stooping into profound humiliations before the throne, and now hung up her fingers in the air, and up there exchanged a hand-shake with some perfect personage of her 26 THE WHITE WEDDING fancy; all which the prisoner performed with lids rosy from weeping, and Anne, peeping eagerly in, grinned with a grim roguery. Anne went spryly in, whereat Rosie let slip a cry, and in a moment, the hat flung off, was sitting in her casement. "What, were you going out, Rosie?" Anne wished to know. " No, Anne, I had on my hat," said Rosie, now all gorgeous with blushing. " I saw that; but whom were you shaking hands with?" "I? with no one." " You are a foolish chick, really, to encourage in yourself such dreams. What can it lead to? I shall inform Arthur of what I caught you doing." " Anne, you wouldn't, would you? you never would!" " I think I shall. What can it matter to you if he laughs at you? He has laughed at me, and I haven't minded, since I do not allow myself any girlish visions, you see, for a girl should learn how to see without tasting, or burning to, miss, women being made to grin and bear, my Rosie, and men to get and grin. Do you know whom Aunt Margaret means him to marry? the SHAN ADANCE 27 Honourable Peggy Greening who was here in the Spring." Rosie sat grum in her window-seat, gazing out at the cedar with its branches bound in chains. " Peggy herself confessed to me that she is gone on his eyes," continued Anne, " because they are of such a fabulous blue, she said, and make such a fascinating colour-picture with his sunburnt face. What do you think?" Rosie made no reply. " But I think his teeth are too long, Rosie," proceeded Anne: " they are nice and white, but one of the front ones is irregularly grown, and over-laps; and they are rather too long, don't you think?" Rosie said nothing. " And, really, his brow lacks breadth," said Anne. . . . " What I like best about him is that bit of bottom-lip shewing between the two wings of his moustache. He has a firm mouth. Yes, that's beguiling to a girl's fancy, I think, don't you?" " I know nothing about it," muttered Rosie in a tone almost too low to be heard. " But it must be confessed that Arthur hasn't acted quite well toward O'Shannon," observed Anne: " I heard this afternoon — have you heard?" 28 THE WHITE WEDDING " What about Shan O'Shannon now, Anne?" asked Rosie. " Arthur for some cause or other has turned him off the estate, as I have heard to-day from Mr. Cochrane, has sent him a cheque for £200, and at the same time O'Shannon has received from a gentleman in Somersetshire the offer of a keeper's place down there, so Arthur must have asked this gentleman to make this offer, for how otherwise could the existence of O'Shannon be known in Somersetshire? I am sorry for poor O'Shannon, aren't you?" " Why should I be sorry, Anne? The man is nothing to me." " Your cousin, Rosie." " Oh, cousins aren't made in heaven; he will have ^200, and a new place. But — has he said anything?" " The poor fellow is hardly any more in his senses, Rosie, if what old Pruie tells me is true : he has returned Arthur's money, has written to Somerset to refuse the new place, has lately been seen taking aim with his fowling-piece at trees in the deeps of the brakes, whatever that may mean, and Wallas even doubts whether he is ' quite right ' in the head this last week. I divine that he may be rather a terrible sort of carle to drive SHAN ADANCE 29 to extremities, don't you? — and I confess I don't like this firing of his fowling-piece at trees when he believes that no one is about, parti- cularly as Pruie says now that he doesn't eat^or go home at night, but roams over the fields like a bogy possessed by fiends. I don't know if this is in any way due to you, Rosie; a girl's play may end in the grimmest earnest, you know — " But now Rosie broke into tears and anger, crying out: " Oh, go and eat your hat! why should you take a delight in teasing me?" whereupon Anne, hearing Rosie's meal ap- proaching, and seeing Rosie teased to tears, now stole out pleased, and tripped down to her dinner. 3° III SHAN IN ACTION SEPTEMBER moved on towards its end, and darker every hour brooded the war-cloud; from Britain, from India, troopships were crowding the sea-routes toward Africa; President Kruger had dismissed his Raad with the words: " war is certain"; by the 2Oth the commandos had been mobilized, the railways taken over, the rush from Johannesburg begun; a gold-train was raided and grabbed by the fury of the God- goaded Kruger; and we others were calling out our reserves. Among the army-regiments under marching orders was Arthur's. Arthur's heart was now divided within him; he could remain behind if he cared to, and had made up his mind to remain: but after he had made it up, an outcry had arisen: " We shall lose South Africa ! " for the Cape Dutch were shaky, which side the negro might choose was on the knees of the gods, it began to be feared that that flock of cultivators might prove thicker skulls to crack than people had believed, and a wave of warm-heartedness was sweeping out our little lords and landlords, to war. Arthur there- I SHAN IN ACTION 31 fore was eager to go and endure hardness with the rest, and he was eager to stay just where he was, in that Rosie Jones was over-sweet. He was pulled both ways many times every day. But his waverings were solved for him by the way things went at Glanncourt between the 2nd and the loth of October. On the 2nd, when a few visitors remained late into the afternoon in the so-called " small" drawing-room at the Hall, Arthur, after talking with them awhile, suddenly on some excuse went away and left them to Anne Hine: the moment therefore that Anne was free, she sped upstairs to see if Rosie was in her room, for she scented a rendezvous, knowing that once before this Rosie had broken prison, and was not sur- prised to find that Rosie, though there, was evidently preparing for a flight. Anne at once went away with a view to wait upon events, and Rosie, the moment she was once more alone, shot one eye at a little ivory clock, and was up for action, though there were still some minutes to spare, in which she put on three different hats, so placed her mirrors as to be able to inspect her back, and when the spare minutes which before- hand had seemed an age to wait through were fled like one moment in these cares, she now 32 THE WHITE WEDDING suddenly found herself late, and was flying to and fro in a flurry of haste, filling the room with her fury to be off. Now she was outside, and now this keenness all at once yielding to caution, she went on tip-toe, all ears, all leers, a thief in the night, fleet yet shy, till she was down stealing through the draw- ing-room, then through the conservatory on the western house-wall, whence, taking the plunge into the open, she made one dart northward toward the Old Garden, a seraglio of box-twig arches, in which she wheeled westward, raced down to the very bottom, and down there, between a fernery and a summer-house, found harbour in Arthur's arms. It was past half-past six of a hazy gloaming, growing dark, and " I daren't stay — only to see you — " Rosie panted on broken breaths. " There's nearly twenty minutes, don't be afraid—" " But, dear, Anne—" " Don't care, sweet, let's think of nothing — for me there's no room for any thought — Do you know, I have been in rather a stew, I was afraid you mightn't come, that some ill-wind might arise somehow — but here you are quite all right — how good and gallant of you — " SHAN IN ACTION 33 " Oh, I don't feel that this is a good place," Rosie said, " if anyone were to pass just there at the top of the garden — " "Let's go, then, into the shrubbery." But at that moment, as they turned, Rosie uttered a sound, for there, gazing at them over the south wall of the shrubbery, some few yards north of them, she saw a face, and she saw a gun- barrel. A face wrung with many pangs, many passions, that face of Shan. . . . "God, Arthur, go," gasped the girl, in one instant ghastly to her lips. Arthur, too, his eyes tied to that sight on the wall, stood paralysed at it; and even when the gamekeeper with a swing and a spring was over the coping, and in the garden was darting at the pair of gallants, still Arthur with a pale smile remained paralysed, with one hand holding Rosie away As to Shan, he seemed not to see Arthur at all, but rushing to Rosie, said in a tone of astonish- ment, " Hello, what'st doing, Rosie?" A moment afterwards his fingers closed on her right arm in so agonizing a grasp that she could hardly suppress the cry which started to her lips; and as her mouth parted to cry, or ever she had 3 34 THE WHITE WEDDING vented a sound, down upon Shan's knuckles came the cane of her lover. "What is it, O'Shannon?" said Arthur, "have you taken leave of your senses?" To this Shan made no reply, drew back a little from the garden-path into a flower-border whose flowers his boots crushed, and, his face hung quite down, dashed his gun to the ground, as if aiming to knock down something with it; and there he remained a little while, swinging his face from side to side, as if not knowing what in the world to do next, while Arthur, palely smiling, looked at him, and Rosie covered her face with both her hands, as if to banish from her sight that which she felt to be coming. It lasted perhaps half a minute, till Shan, look- ing sharply up, stepped forward toward Arthur, aying vehemently: "So this is how it was." "O'Shannon," said Arthur, smiling ever at him, " you are to get away at once." " So this is how it was," said Shan again, still more vehemently. "I have spoken, you know, O'Shannon," said Arthur: words at which suddenly now all Shan's blood swarmed up into his face, till he was almost brown with passion, and out he broke into a cruel laugh, crying: " Yes, the rogues: the SHAN IN ACTION 35 Almighty has spoken! and everybody must go and do as they say, because they are sons of fathers who were murderers and robbers of the earth, and they themselves are so confirmed in robbery, they think it nothing to rob a man's heart out of his bosom — " "Now, O'Shannon!" said Arthur, cutting this short, his cane smacking his calf: " you must not make yourself a public pest; nothing re- sembling a wrong has been done you, and you have to take yourself off this instant." This again appeared to have the effect of making the gamekeeper fly into yet greater anger, and he cried: " Yes! do as the king says!" and he cast up his arms and stamped, crying: "No wrong! Lord, no wrong!" Then he called Arthur a coward, showing how Arthur had dealt double that morning when he brought Arthur the present of the salmon and part- ridges: "for," said he, "it wasn't any Mrs. Gordridge that's { queer,' it wasn't because she's 'as good as Mrs. Gordridge's daughter,' and I wasn't to be 'too ambitious,' no, it was you yourself that was wambling after her, to her humbling, but you lacked the pluck to splutter what was sick in you, man to man. O, that's bad," he said, "when a man's not straight, O, 36 THE WHITE WEDDING that's ratsbane, that's a grim drug," he said again and again, groaning radically, "O, that's drastic, that's damned." Arthur so far had said hardly anything, but at last, flushing, he said to Shan: " O'Shannon, you have been told to go away, don't let me have to tell you again, or I shall have to thrash you." "Will you that?" cried Shan, starting; "don't suppose because we were both born in one night, and you've been sick, I'd keep my hands off you!" Upon this Arthur, cutting the air once with his cane, said in a final tone: "Now, O'Shannon." "Thrash away!" cried Shan, "don't be afraid! thee couldn'st cut so deep as thee's cut already, shame on thee," and as that "shame on thee" passed his lips, the Rubicon was crossed, two steps darted Arthur to bruise him over the head, while from Rosie's startled heart broke half a cry, half a sob. "That's good! " shouted Shan as the cane came down, " give'n to me," and as Arthur gave him another athwart the neck, again Shan O'Shannon called, " that's the way! give the dog a lesson! " and once again was the cane raised, though not this third time to strike, SHAN IN ACTION 37 Arthur turning toward Rosie, calling : " Come." She went after him all with a whitish visage, passing behind Shan, who stood with his brow on the summer-house trellis, and at the north side of the garden they passed under the shrub- bery wall, and through a gate into the shrubbery itself, where Arthur said to Rosie: " Don't be afraid any longer, darling, it is all over, and shan't ever happen again — " he being rather short of breath, which she perhaps perceiving, lifted her hand, which he held, so as to kiss his, but in that very act was conscious through every nerve that she was observed, and Shan at her anew. . . . Shan had come dancing mad, and as tactical as a cat, so that at the instant of that contact between lips and hand, before they could even look, he was between the two, saying: " No, you can't have it all your own way: if thee'st any- thing of a wight, let's fight it out for her " — and now they could hear his teeth squeak together with eagerness. " O'Shannon," said Arthur, calmly enough, though he was blanched, " don't you dare molest me, or I'll break every bone in your body." " That's a cock!" cried Shan, " let's fight for 38 THE WHITE WEDDING it, and let the finest lad of the pair take her." Arthur looked at him under the eyes, and, " Well," he said after ten seconds, " I'll admit now that you have some grounds to feel agrieved, and if you believe that a thorough drubbing will bang it all clean out of you, I am not disinclined to do that much for you." " But it is / who is going to drub you, look," said Shan, " if only you hadn't been ailing, if only I was good egg enough to lay the weight of this little finger upon you." " For shame, Shan O'Shannon, to talk to Mr. Arthur," Rosie with a clearing of the throat now adventured to suggest in a fragile tone of voice, " I shall be sorry for you if you do." To her Shan gave no answer, but said in an agony to Arthur: "You hear her? that girl? You have turned her all dead against me now! She means to say that you may do whatever you like to her and to me, but if I just dare to touch you, it will be a case of gaol for me." " No," answered Arthur with a stern face, caning his calf: " no gaol; Rosie will not speak of it, it shall be a secret between us three." But now she, seeing what was about to come, turned coward, catching at Arthur's arm, say- ing " Ah, Arthur, do not think of having any- SHAN IN ACTION 39 thing to do with such a brute — " at which word " brute " Shan laughed, and striking on Arthur's shirt-front with his fingers, chuckling, he asked: " I say, is it the best man of the two who shall have her?" Arthur's face went all wrathful at this, and dashing away Shan's fingers from his chest, he answered: " Yes, I give you my word, the better of the two " — he being a boxer, and it being the essence of his creed that an aristocrat can ever beat and do as he pleases to a plebeian, though Rosie, for her part, knowing something of Shan O'Shannon, understood in her heart that Arthur ought never to have so far pledged him- self; however, she had not the chance to say a word, for now Arthur, turning to her, whispered her: " You run away, Rosie, and await me over there behind the bend; I will soon have this brute drubbed humble and tame — " in saying which his moustache brushed Rosie's cheek in a sort of kiss, and in the moment of that touch, Shan shoved his shoulder. No hard shove — hardly a shove: but in that very moment war broke out; at the sound and view of which thing Rosie fled away from them, having never dreamed that two human beings could be so brutish rude to each other, but soon 40 THE WHITE WEDDING ran back to the fracas, then fled away anew, a little way to and fro, distracted, with slight little cries of " O! " and " Help! " and " Don't! " and through all the age that it lasted she was unable to look straight at them, but anon caught glances as through scarlet glasses, seeing blood- guilt, seeing Arthur grounded ... he appeared not to be able to keep on his feet at all, each time she gave her eyes a peep, there he was, down again, and as down he went, out leapt her thin howl for him. Shan O'Shannon seemed never to miss, to be able to measure his distance as a machine without fail, his two feet moving about as one, never changing their space between, his two fists rolling like wheels in eccentric rotation, his neck twisted somewhat to the right, his eyes fixed to the left upon his enemy with a malign aspect; and thrice the very same thing took place over again, each time with the same grief to Arthur, when Arthur, striking far forth with the left arm and the whole weight of his body a blow, which, if it had caught Shan's face, must have smashed it, Shan dodged it by a duck to the right, and pressing on Arthur's ex- tended left arm with his own left, span Arthur quite round, exposing his left ribs, into which Shan now drove with his own right a pounding SHAN IN ACTION 41 cross-counter which stretched the other low; thrice: and that last time there followed an omen of disaster that Rosie, though at that moment some distance off, was distinctly aware of — a crackling, like the brittle breaking-in of a box, a little uproar of broken ribs; after which it was a full minute before she was able to look at all that way again, and then, looking, she saw Arthur lying quite quiet on the ground, and she saw Shan O'Shannon crouched by the side of Arthur, with his throat strained right back, poring straight up at the clouds, howling out " Oh-h, Oh-h, Oh-h," like a hound howling over the drowned. In some moments, however, he sprang up and went running past Rosie like a wild thing without his hat, holding his brow between both his hands, and immediately after him she, too, scared out of her wits to be all alone with what lay there quite quiet on the ground, rushed with her wild white face round into the garden-path out of the shrubbery, gibbering something where there was no one near to hear her. Now, Anne Hine, meantime, was out, had passed through the top (east) part of the Old Garden at about the very time when, unseen by her, Arthur and Rosie before the fight were 42 THE WHITE WEDDING leaving the bottom part of it in order to enter the shrubbery, and shun the presence of Shan; in ignorance of which, with eager ears and prospect, Anne ran on across the road which separates the Old Garden and the New, and passed into the New through a gate in its great wall. Her eyes ran through the enclosure, which was not thickly wooded, and catching no sight of Rosie and Arthur, she thought to herself, " they are in the rockery " — a grotto all adrip round a pond of gold-fish at one end of the row of hot-houses under the north garden-wall — and thither Anne made, strolling now, lingering to gaze over a flower or plum-espalier, lest any eyes in her hot-houses, chancing to see her, might divine her spying mind. She passed into the hot-houses by the east entrance, walked through the peaches, orchids, bananas, the vinery, and, stepping over the rocks in the fish-pond, emerged at the western extremity of the houses without having encoun- tered a soul, so back, southward she now returned with brisker feet and an even keener appetite to find out what was what, and in which deep nook sweetmeats were being eaten that evening. She was soon to know, since, as she once more got out into the road between the two gardens, SHAN IN ACTION 43 she met an old body known as " Pruie," Shan's housekeeper, and noticing rather a ghastliness in Pruie's skin, Anne asked her what was wrong. This old Pruie replied: "It's Mr. O'Shannon! I have just come on him — lying — " "Catch your breath!" " Under that beech-tree on the riseaboove we; when I did speak to'n, him didn't make no reply, and when I did shake'n, er did only moan — " Anne's quick instincts working urgently two seconds, in the third she said: " Is he hurt?" " Him do have some cuts. . . ." " I'll go to him," and at once she passed into a gate in the north shrubbery-wall, in order to race through the shrubbery as the nearest way to the " rise," but in speeding down a path in the shrubbery, the sound of a rush of footfalls crushing through crisp leaves of Autumn caused her to look round to her right, and down in an alley she saw Rosie arise out of haze, flying with a wild face. A moment more, and Rosie was moaning on her shoulder. " What, not in your room, Rosie?" said Anne; " whatever is the matter?" " He is half killed— !" "Not Arthur?" 44 THE WHITE WEDDING " I left him on the ground — I couldn't stand it—5' " But don't be hysterical! just tell one what has happened. You see now, Rosie — " " He is on the ground, he didn't reply when I spoke to him — " " Come shew me — " " Down there in the round place — " Both now bolted down an alley until Rosie? pointing at a spot on the road, panted: " there ! " but nobody was to be seen when they came to the spot, only someone's cap lying on the ride; and by the twilight still reigning between the trees Anne was able to perceive blood-smears on some leaves. " There is no one," said Anne with surprise, and now the other, without making any reply, failed and fainted quite away, whereat Anne gripped and lowered her down, and, crouching to hold her up, murmured over the unconscious girl: " Yes, it's a darling penny- farthing face, and the lips are just made for playing Box and Cox with Arthur's; but they mustn't, the gods and I be jealous. This serves you right, and him, too, for forbidden fruit isn't all honey of Hybla, you see, and I'm rather glad in my heart, what- ever it is that has happened. . . . There's blood SHAN IN ACTION 45 on the ground ... if a little could be drawn in a sound trouncing from miss, too, that should prove cooling to the passions. It's blood that makes romance, and I have none, scarcely enough to make me yuck and sicken for more. . . . Come, you've got to get up, I can't stay here all night admiring you. She is quite wannish now, looking as divine as whitish violets; if I could love, I'd devour her mouth. . . ." Rosie, being shaken, now unfolded her large orbs, and stared about. " Where is Arthur?" asked Anne. "There! " cried Rosie, indicating the place where she had left him lying. " But he isn't, you see. Come, pull yourself together, Rosie." " Has he got up? ' " Evidently." " I must have fainted. ..." " Come, try to get up. Let us go that way and look." Anne grasped Rosie's arm while again they ran, this time into the Old Garden, where, though no Arthur was visible there, more marks of blood showed that he had gone that way, and when they had rushed across the garden, they beheld the back of someone resembling him 46 THE WHITE WEDDING through the evening murks just entering the conservatory, apparently with very staggering feet, for the figure seemed to reel from side to side. By the time they got to the house, the figure was again out of sight, had gone in, and Arthur had been taken up to his apartments by some flunkeys, one of whom Anne met pelting down the stairs to send for Dr. Blood. A few moments afterwards both Anne and Mrs. Gordridge were at Arthur's bed, the rumour of it had gone out, and the Hall was all in a hush of awe, no one having any notion how it had happened, for Arthur, in a half-uncon- scious way, could not, or would not, answer any questions. Having tasted of a late and lonely dinner, Anne then made her way to Rosie's room, saying on her entrance, " There's no necessity for so much distress, Rosie," — for Rosie was stretched on her sofa, still inconsolable — " be- sides his broken ribs, he has two black eyes, it is true, with quite a kaleidoscope of bruises, and has been well peppered on the whole, but Dr. Blood declares that he will be up in some days. . . Come, tell me about it. . . ." Rosie now tried to dry her eyes, and slowly told the whole story. SHAN IN ACTION 47 " Well," said Anne, having heard, " thank Heaven, there has been no murder, as there might easily have been; anyhow, the fight clears the air, for you now definitely revert to Shan O'Shannon, Rosie, it would seem, by right of conquest." " Do I?" answered Rosie, drying her eyes: " I'll shew him reverting." " But since Arthur gave his word," remarked Anne, " that, of course, is final for him. ... I must go back to him. . . ." " But, Anne, you won't tell that it was Shan O'Shannon, will you? Arthur said that I wouldn't — " " No, I don't intend to tell — " and now Anne sped a way down to play her part in all the pother of the house. 48 IV SHAN MAKES A VOW IT was on that same day that Shan and Arthur fought that President Stein forwarded to Sir Alfred Milner a note giving him to know that he was mobilising his burghers; whereat, some days afterwards, on this side, reserves for our first army-corps were called out; Parliament was summoned: and from that to the war was an affair on only some three or four days. . All those eight days before the outbreak of war, Arthur had lain abed, for the paws of Shan had proved bruising; and still Shan was as large, for Arthur would not tell out how he had got his flogging. " I wonder why he won't tell," Mrs. Gordridge said to Anne Hine, on the 6th (October), three days before the Boer ultimatum: " but it could have been nobody except Shan O'Shannon; and O'Shannon must be sent to Gloucester for it." " I fancy, Aunt," said Anne, "that Arthur may have promised O'Shannon before the fight not to take any steps — " " Nonsense, the man must be properly punished," said the old lady; " he has my ad- SHAN MAKES A VOW 49 miration, of course, for, if I had been he, I should have acted just as he has; but, then, I am not he, and, being myself, I want my paltry revenge." "You are quite right, Aunt, as you always are," remarked Anne. " Who ever heard of such an impertinence?" asked the old lady: " I am a Socialist myself, but I'll permit nobody on the estate to presume to share my views. O'Shannon shan't be at large another day, so send presently to the village, and tell Morgan I want him." " Yes, Aunt. But suppose Arthur goes to the war, after all? it might be convenient to have O'Shannon here to marry Rosie . . ." " But what puts it into your head that Arthur may go to South Africa now?" asked Mrs. Gordridge. " I have a fancy that he may," answered Anne: " he has been keen on the newspapers the last day or two — " " Oh, everybody lying abed is keen on news- papers. He isn't rushing out to any war; and I have made up my mind to pack Rosie off to Sheila in Quang Chow." " Quite so, Aunt — unless Arthur were to scent her out out there. . . . The safest of all, it strikes 4 50 THE WHITE WEDDING me, would be her marriage with O'Shannon, for nothing can get over the fait accompli of mar- riage; and it is quite on the cards that Arthur will go in the excitement, if war does break out: you wait and see: he is disgusted with every- thing for permitting himself to be drubbed, and seems to have really given up Rosie for the moment.' " Hasn't he made any effort at all to see her since the struggle?" asked Mrs. Gordridge. " No, Aunt; he has sent her one note by Price, I know, but it couldn't have been a very hopeful one, for she has been specially crabapplish ever since; I haven't seen it, she keeps it somewhere about in the region between blouse and chemise." i " You are not to spy upon that poor child, Anne," said Mrs. Gordridge with a cross mouth, " I can't bear a snake-in-the-grass. . . . But it's odd that he hasn't wanted her to go to him, he must be waiting till he gets well again. It would be interesting to know what was in that note of his; just try to find out; girls should be able to worm out things without exactly being snakes- in-the-grass. . . . No, he isn't going out to any South Africa, no such freak of luck, so do what I tell you as to O'Shannon, and have Morgan here." SHAN MAKES A VOW 51 " Aunt," said Anne, " you are sure to be right," and to herself she added: " Darling old blinkard, you are always too bunged up with self- will to have the least insight into other people's minds." Anne herself walked down to Albington that afternoon to see Morgan, the bobby, and though Morgan was not then to be found, the morning after, the yth, he walked up to the Hall, and had a talk with Mrs. Gordridge; and now those clouds which lowered over Shan's brow gathered angrily to burst upon it, not without wide whispers and murmurings, in spite of the furtiveness with which the first measures were entered upon. By noon of the gth the policeman was at Shan's place with his piece of blue paper. But it was one thing to go to arrest Shan, and another thing to arrest him. During the gloam- ing of the loth, Anne broke into the room of Rosie, who had morosely got sick, brimming with the story of the struggle which had been going on at Shan's cottage, going on in the shrubberies, going on actually among the rocks in the brook, during two long days: on the first of which Shan had fled, and there had been no catching him, than on a sudden he had offered himself, and had said, " take me, if you can." 40 52 THE WHITE WEDDING " They, haven't got him even now," said Anne Hine all in a glee, " I have been looking on among the crowd from the tump of the Morple- piece, and he has been giving the whole four of them beans." " But the man must be mad, shame ought to cover his face," remarked Rosie. "He isn't bad," observed Anne Hine with her tart smile: " he peppers them all well: if I was a girl of the people, that's the gallant the turn of my fancy might find pleasing." " But what can he mean by carrying on like a mad thing, upsetting the whole place like this, and Mama Gordridge been always so good to him? shame ought to cover his face: he is only making it hotter for himself." " / know the poor fellow's motive," an- swered Anne: "he fancies that it is Arthur who is prosecuting him after promising not to, and this has embittered and turned him turbulent." " But does Arthur know of it?" " Not a syllable: Aunt Margaret won't have him told; but that is what O'Shannon believes, I am convinced, and his rebellion against the queen is really a raging against Arthur; I can quite divine the man. Old Pruie says that he has groaned ' false ' to himself in the night-time: so SHAN MAKES A VOW 53 that's it. He doesn't suspect that Arthur starts to-morrow — I suppose you know, Rosie, that war has been declared to-day?" . " War has? I hadn't been informed." " And Arthur is off out to fight, Rosie." "Arthur is?" " Yes, Rosie." "To fight, is he?" " Yes, no more Arthur now. I have only this moment been told, and pelted to tell you. . . . He is still in bed, but means to get up in the morning, and will start in the evening." " But not to-morrow he won't start?" " Yes, to-morrow; but you still have a whole night in the same house with him — there she goes, all ghastly: don't be a goosie, now, Rosie; it is only like wanting chocolat Menier for breakfast, and not being able to get it." Rosie stole all on ache to her casement, nothing more remaining to her now, her day suddenly dark and done, and such a sound of distress gushed out of her, that Anne ran and hugged her a little, saying, " goosie, you must take it standing up, it isn't so much, the trouble won't last a month, and nobody is to be butchered, then he will return nice and sun- burnt, and there'll be more bon-bons, maybe — " 54 THE WHITE WEDDING " Anne, don't," replied Rosie in pain, " I'm only a poor orphan all out in the cold without father or mother, I have nothing to do with anything, nothing is any affair of mine. . . ." " Silly," said Anne, pinching her chin: " I didn't think you'd cut up so badly: don't I assure you that you'll soon see him. . . ." But in this Anne proved not so shrewd a prophet as she usually was, for the " troop of boors " meant to approve themselves brave men and a famous foe, so that, save when Rosie caught a back-view of Arthur for a moment from her casement on his departure for the station, she saw him no more for many a month. He left for his love one little last letter, in which, however, were no vows, nor one hope held out of happiness in store: and he went away. It was five of a wild gloaming, the loth of the month, that gloaming momentous with war in the memory of many, the heavens all amove on a voyage of heaviness, like caravans with convoys, and armies on the march with baggage, all gloomily bugled by north-winds. Arthur started off on foot for the station together with Anne Hine and his man, Price,* one piece of sticking- * Everybody there being named Price. SHAN MAKES A VOW 55 plaster still adhering there on his right cheek, while Mrs. Gordridge, with Dr. Blood and the Rev. Mr. Orrock, eyed him till he disappeared behind the stables. A little beyond the stables he passed through a little iron gate betwixt the north-west covert and the home-farm, whence one path went south into the turnpike road, and so to the village, and a second plunged west down a broken bit of ground, at the bottom of which wound the brook; this latter was much the nearer way to the station, but just here Anne suggested the village-way. " No, I want to have some time to see to the trunks and things," replied Arthur: " we'll go over the Morplepiece — unless you have some reason?" " I am not sure of it now," was Anne's answer, " but I fancy that Aunt Margaret might prefer you to go by the village-way." " Mysterious chit you are, Anne," remarked Arthur: " ever with some secret streak in your mind's eye to smile to yourself over: you have the genius of the Russian court. . . . Whyever should mother have any preference?" " It doesn't matter," muttered Anne: " let us take the Morplepiece way, since you like. . . ." The country thereabouts is extremely broken, 56 THE WHITE WEDDING all mountains, and this Morplepiece a meadow climbing like a bowl on the farther bank of the brook, some way up the brook-valley on a spur of the Morplepiece being Shan's cottage, with the pheasant-pens and the woodard's cottage : so that Arthur had not gone far down the broken ground in the direction of the brook before he began to come upon tokens of the brigue still going on between Shan and the queen. First, under an oak he observed lying in a pile the five bikes that had brought over one of the Lydney and four of the Ebbstow police, then he came upon a cart waiting ready to receive the rebel, then, where the wood cleared a little down by the brook, could see the crowd on the tump of the Morplepiece, and lastly, some yards from Shan's cottage, could see the very press of battle — the six bobbies and something tumbling in their midst. They had won Shan into the open at last, and the end was near now. " What is it all about?" asked Arthur, stop- ping to look at the little scene far off. " It is O'Shannon being arrested, Arthur," answered Anne: " this is the third day that they have been trying to take him, and can't. First there was Morgan from Albington alone, then another one came, then two more, and now SHAN MAKES A VOW 57 there are six of them. I am glad to see you look so pleased, I'm sure. . . ." " Pleased about what?" asked Arthur quickly. " How should I know? I dare say you are feeling that it is no disgrace for one man to be thrashed by a gallant who can thrash six." "Who has been thrashed by whom? What has this O'Shannon done to be grabbed by these police people?" " Grievous bodily harm, it is said, Arthur." " To whom?" " To you, it is said, Arthur." " But — why have I been told nothing of this before?" " Aunt Margaret — " began Anne, but now a noise of voices among the mob of loiterers on the Morplepiece maundered down the valley on the breezes, for Shan had just been floored, whereat Arthur, without waiting to hear more, hastened over the slab-bridge of the brook, and north- ward up a foot-path to the scene of the fracas. He found Shan down on his back with his chest gasping beneath two of the policemen's knees, the other men trampling about him like a group of people scrambling for pennies, everyone with drabbled garments and bloody sweats, particu- larly the poor prisoner, who, all red and ragged, 58 THE WHITE WEDDING was very grimly mauled; but at the sight of Arthur there was a slight pause and suspending of effort, for the men all knew him well, and he said to them, caning his calf, " well, but what is all this, men?" " Taking Shan O'Shannon for the assault on you, sir," panted Morgan, a fatty mass of matter, not fit for too much fisticuffs. " This is odd," said Arthur: " on whose charge is the man to be tried?" " On Mrs. Gordridge's, sir." " I see. . . . But on what evidence? I never told anyone that the man had assaulted me; in fact, you are to let him alone, he hasn't assaulted me." " But then, sir — " began Morgan. " Just come here," said Arthur, who had stopped some yards short of the struggle, and, having drawn Morgan apart, he impressed it upon him that O'Shannon was on no account to be imprisoned, put into Morgan's hand some gold, and ran back down the path with a glance at his watch, muttering as he met Anne Hine, " great nuisance, I have lost eight minutes now, we shall have to hurry; perhaps you had better go back, Anne. . . ." Anne, however, went still some way with him up to the tump of the Morple- SHAN MAKES A VOW 59 piece and beyond, till the pace became too great for her, when she was hurriedly kissed by Arthur, who said to her, " good-bye, take care of yourself and of mother, and — just look after poor Rosie for me, won't you?" " All right," said Anne Hine, " take care of yourself, meli- orque revertere." " Within four months, I hope," answered Arthur, and he and his man went away in haste. By this time the policemen, having laid their heads together, had agreed among themselves as to how the land lay, Shan was provisionally at large, most of the crowd gone away, and Anne was almost down at the brook once more on her way home when she noticed Shan in some bush on the other shore, with his nose to a beech-bole which he was holding with both his arms; he seemed to be beating his already bruised brow upon the bark of the beech, for his delivery from the law by Arthur had very powerfully moved Shan; and the sly Anne, with her insight into the mind of her neighbour understanding that this must be the case, and impelled by her passion for pinching and playing the Puck to pain, passed close to Shan, and remarked: " it is you, Mr. O'Shannon." Shan glared round at Anne with a gaze of 60 THE WHITE WEDDING sorrow, the sour grumness of gaze of the ox struck down in the ring, without making any answer. "I am so glad, Mr. O'Shannon," she said, "at the lucky way things have gone: I only trust it will be a lesson to you never more to encourage morose and rebellious emotions. You see, Lieutenant Gordridge, for his part, was wholly ignorant of the charge made against you, and the moment he knew he most magnanimously gave himself the pains to save you, though he might quite well have felt inclined to stand aloof in such a case." Still Shan stood dumb. " Well, all's well that ends well," Anne went on: " I take it that the whole misery has arisen through a mistaken notion on your side of Lieutenant Gordridge's motives, for you grossly misjudge him if you imagine that he meant to trifle at all with Rosie Jones. There is no better fellow, no more gracious and noble spirit than Lieutenant Gordridge, and it must grieve him, I think, that you, of all people, should have mis- judged him." " What are you saying, Miss Hine?" Shan at last asked. " What I know," replied Anne with her I [AN MAKES A VOW smile: " poor Lieutenant Gordridge had a really very serious regard for Rosie Jones, and has frequently expressed to Mrs. Gordridge his will to marry her immediately." " Marry?" " Why, yes, though that's all over and done with now — through you. Since your mauling of him, he has not even once seen her, owing to some undertaking made to you, I believe, and you can conceive, can't you, what they both have borne. Did you notice Lieutenant Gord- ridge just now, how very gaunt he is looking? As you are aware, he was always a spoiled child, he gets quite sick if his whims are foiled, and this time a heart of iron might have felt for him, night after night, all night, he has paced his chamber with bare feet, peevishly pining after Rosie Jones, so Price says, and it is you, Mr. O'Shannon, who has driven him desperate now, and sent poor Lieutenant Gordridge out to the war." "War?" " Surely you know that Lieutenant Gordridge is just off to join his regiment, in order — Why, what is it?" Shan looked electrified, started away from his tree, asking, " is it the 5.25?" 62 THE WHITE WEDDING " Yes, but—" But Shan was gone. Pelting, he glanced at his watch — it had been smashed; he pulled up half a second, cast up his arms, distracted; then, catching sight of three bicycles lying under a tree, ran and whipped one of them to his shoulder, ran with it over the brook, ran with it up to the tump, and bestrid- ing it at the top, with wild winds behind his back was swept away down in a cloud of dust. He was just in time, on dashing into the tiny station, to find the train there ready to be off, and ran by the side of it, a wild-looking sight with his batteries and rags, till he came to the compartment wherein Arthur sat snug in wraps and rugs; and now Shan wrenched at the door- handle— it was bolted; he beat at the window; and Arthur, letting it down, leaning out from his seat, said, " well, now, O'Shannon. . . ." Shan was so fearfully moved that he could hardly speak, precious as his moments were. " I'm only a poor chap," were the first pants which Arthur could catch, and he murmured, " yes, yes, be quick." " I didn't know," said Shan with catches of the breath, " I took it that you were not quite SHAN MAKES A VOW 63 downright square with her, and you look pretty pale now, but I didn't know — " " Don't bother now, O'Shannon," said the other. " But hear a poor chap out, I'm only a poor chap—" "Well, what is it?" " You don't realize all, look," Shan contrived to say; " from my childhood, a fetich in my heart, you'd hardly imagine, if you don't know, you and her, the two of you, no one knows, and what have I dared do now, and how you have paid me for it, it's painful. . . ." " I see how it is. Well, then, here's my hand: now there's no bad blood left. . . ." " But you stay here," Shan breathed at his fetich's ear, " stay and — " " Well?" " Take her." "Rosie! You say that?" " Yes, that's serious, take her: I have said it." " Well, that's wonderfully decently said!" " Aye, that's quite serious, you take her: when a thing's once said, it's said, and when a thing's once done, it's done." " But still— no," muttered Arthur, " after 64 THE WHITE WEDDING all, I have given my word, she is yours now, I suppose, and altogether I wish you joy." " Always a brick! But you want her, don't you? Who can escape it? it's pitiful. . . . And — I hand her back to you " " I say, O'Shannon, you are, really — wonder- fully decent." " Yes, that's serious, I've said it now." " But still, I'm bound now, it seems, to go to the war — " " Are you? Well, no doubt you are; of course, you are. Go, then, and I tell you what, I'll — look after her for you till the day you get back." " Thank you, you are wonderfully good, thank you, thanks. But, I say, O'Shannon, come now, is that a promise upon which one may rely?" " Yes, I've said it." " I'll be back anyway in four months. . . ." " As soon as ever you like, I don't mind, the sooner the sooner over for me, after all: she shall be yours when you come — say in four months' time." " That's a compact, then; I only hope that I'm not taking advantage of a moment's generous impulse — no, I think not, that's all right, for you would hardly send one away in- flated with expectations which you did not fully I SHAN MAKES A VOW 65 intend to sustain for one. Listen, O'Shannon: it seems beastly to say now, but may be Pd better say it out: she's hardly — eager to have you in that way, you could never get her quite easy and satisfied; facts are hard things, not always as we would ordain them, so there is nothing like reconciling oneself to them with a good grace, eh? So for her sake — Well, good-bye, thanks, thanks, don't forget — ! " For the station-master, who would no longer wait, had waved his flag, and Shan ran forward with the running train, grasping Arthur's hand, till the rate gathered and still gathered great- ness, and left him there, and swept his friend away; but still he lingered on, gazing long over the rails, and at last turned to move homeward in so hopeless a mood of bereavement, so robbed and hollow of spirit, that when a policeman, meeting him at the cross-roads, morosely demanded his " machine," Shan let the machine crash down at the man's feet without speech, and moved on with a drooped brow. In passing down the Morplepiece to his house, he was seen an instant by Mrs. Gordridge, who said of him to Anne Hine: " But what about Shan O'Shannon's arrest? I declare I had forgotten all about the man in the excitement. . ." 5 66 THE WHITE WEDDING She with her small court was at the far end of the stretch of land called The Meadows — a park really, though almost bare of trees in the middle — from which far end a piece of the rail- way was to be seen, and, watching the place where she had seen the train bear Arthur away, she was still waiting for nothing underneath the trees there, when for an instant she saw Shan. Anne now told the story of how Arthur had gone to the rescue of Shan on his way to the train, to which Mrs. Gordridge made answer: " That is all right, then, for since Arthur declares that the man is innocent, of course he is, and I'll forgive him, if he is properly repent- ant. After all, Shan O'Shannon is part of the place, a most worthy person in his way, and, moreover, a man can't be cast out anyhow who is about to be a husband." " Right," said the Rev. Mr. Orrock. " And the quicker a husband the better," said Dr. Blood: " for this war won't last four weeks, I foresee." " O'Shannon shall be married before the war has well begun," said Mrs. Gordridge, " for I don't believe in running risks, and leaving loop- holes to chance." " Right! " repeated the clergyman: " though SHAN MAKES A VOW 67 personally I believe that tlie war will last six months." " Four weeks, sir," repeated Dr. Blood. "Here is a man," remarked Mr. Orrock, "who once said that it would never happen at all; I think he mentioned, if my memory is not at fault, that Providence would never permit it." "Pardon me," replied Dr. Blood, "what I did say was, that, if Providence did permit it, it would never permit it to last, and what I have said I stick to." " Yes, your Providence is a benevolent old soul up in the sky, who swoons at the sight of blood," replied Mr. Orrock. " Well, Arthur is gone to the war," sighed Mrs. Gordridge to herself, gazing at the stretch of railway far off, " God go with him." " Listen, Richard, listen," whispered Dr. Blood: " she believes, if you don't." " Don't pretend not to comprehend," an- swered the clergyman, with a rosy flush: "she believes, yes, but in a modern tone — which is all the difference. I also have every hope that God will go with him, for he goes, to begin with, with a box of bile beans which I myself placed in his waistcoat pocket — " " Ach Gott! " chuckled Dr. Blood bitterly, 50 68 THE WHITE WEDDING " bile beans above every other abomination: catch. Margaret or me gulping — " "You are not to brangle, you two! " Mrs. Gordridge sharply said: " it's a marvel that you don't begin to grow weary of it. ... Come on, he's gone, it's no use waiting here staring at two rails " — and with her court and dogs after her, the old lady hobbled off on her ebony stick for the Hall. I SHAN IN A NET 'HE morning following Arthur's departure for the war was so warm, though in mid-Autumn, that Mrs. Gordridge that morning "administered the Gordridge family " from an arm-chair in a summer-house — that same Old Garden summer- house close by which one evening Shan had swept down like a wheeling wind upon the meeting between the sweethearts. Thither Anne Hine had led the old lady's gouty toes, and stayed by her side while out of her island of shade she gazed at the blaze of light in which basked the arches flowers and bowers of the garden, and while one after the other she gave interviews to her land-steward, head-gardener, lady-housekeeper, to Morgan, the policeman, and sipped out of her glass of egg-nog, and was good and cruel capriciously to her Jap dogs. It was half-past eleven when, sighing free of all this, she said to Anne Hine: "Well, where is Rosie Jones? did you tell the child that I want her?'? " There she is just passing through the gate, Aunt," replied Anne. 70 THE WHITE WEDDING " All right, you go away a little." " Yes, Aunt," and Anne went, those two pencil-lines like brackets round her mouth ex- panding in a mincing little smile as she passed by Rosie on a path: for she knew what pill was in store now for poor Rosie's throat. Rosie ran hatless, a halo of glare entangled in that golden snare of her hair, her sorrow in her gaze, and now at the summer-house door was asking, " Yes, Mama Gordridge?" " Kiss me," said Mrs. Gordridge. Rosie went in and did this. " Sit there," said Mrs. Gordridge, and Rosie being seated at her feet, wondering what now, with apprehensive eyebrows, as she shot flying glances up, Mrs. Gordridge added, "tell me: what are all the red eyes about?" Rosie made no reply, tears springing to her eyes, her lip shaking, so the old lady pinched her cheek, saying: " This comes of locking you up like a prisoner, poor girl, and now the roses are gone all withered, though richly watered no doubt with showers out of the sky in the eyes — what? Well, but all's well that ends well! So long as you are perfectly certain that it was no doing of mine . . . ! since I only work for every- body's happiness, and have to carry everybody's SHAN IN A NET 71 burdens, so as to keep people from blundering and miscarrying; and what everybody will do when I am dead Heaven only knows. I had to lock you away from that hurricane, you know — not that I blame him one bit, for you're un- doubtedly a sweet little piece of pig-meat, good to eat between the teeth, and if I was a boy, I'd be after you myself, no doubt; but that gave me all the greater grounds for acting grimly, and may be you haven't been so weeping a captive, after all, for haven't you been out of the house to meet him once — or oftener?" From Rosie's bent face rose no breath in answer. " I am not angry; let me hear." " Yes, then, Mama Gordridge." " Ah, you see, you can't hide much from me : I know what you are thinking about in your bed at night when the lights are out. . . . So — how often did you meet him?" " Twice." "You see: I knew. And — whereabouts did you meet him?" " There, by the summer-house." " Exactly. ... I have done the same thing myself before I was even sixteen, so don't be so simple as to think that I am cross at anything, 72 THE WHITE WEDDING except at your supposing that I didn't know all. Why ought I to be cross? Don't you cry, it is all over now, and in three weeks and a half from now you will have forgotten all about it in your new home with your own husband." " Who will, Mama Gordridge?" asked Rosie, staring up with eyes of scare. " Why, what's the immoderate surprise about?" asked Mrs. Gordridge with a show of surprise: " aren't you about to marry your cousin Shan?" " 7 am, Mama Gordridge?" " But isn't that so, Rosie — dear? That's what I took for granted! Is there any other solution which you can suggest?" Rosie, as if she heard in some dream, sat twisted, staring up, unable to breathe a word, her face bleeding inwardly away, till she stared mere lily-flesh. Here was the last end of all her lingering dream of Arthur, and good-bye to everything, and such was her greatness of dis- may, that over those glaucous eye-balls of Mrs. Gordridge the lids closed down a moment to shut out the sight of it, and she bent aside to sip, muttering with some impatience: " I hope you are not going to behave like a martyr, girl, for you must see that, though this war has come as a SHAN IN A NET 73 merciful thing to pick us all out of a tight place, since it will not be lasting long, Arthur will soon be back upon us, and if you are not then well married off, there may be no end of a rumpus: so you see why — you see why. . . ." Now, how- ever, Rosie was suddenly down on her knees, pleading, " Oh, please, Mama Gordridge, don't allow me to go through this, please!" On this, Mrs. Gordridge, her eyes averted from that perfect heart-cry, scratched the neck of a dog, then drew Rosie to a stool, drew Rosie's head to her shoulder, and smoothed and soothed it, cooing: " Foolish old thing! What, wouldn't you like to be a sweet little wife? Or is it that you don't like this Shan O' Shannon?" "Oh, I don't wish to be married!" went Rosie. " What, not to be a mistress of your own home ? and have a pink pickaninny to spank and pamper? and a hulking husband to bully and stamp at? and to be always near your mama? for I shan't ever let you be far from my side." " But oh, not to Shan O'Shannon, I couldn't stand Shan O'Shannon !" cried Rosie. " Why, since when?" asked Mrs. Gordridge: '' you liked him well enough before you got bitten by Arthur, you were aware that I had 74 THE WHITE WEDDING given you to him, and you gave your assent to it. You see, it is only a whim. . . .We women are such fowl to imagine that our craze for trousers in general is a craze for one particular pair ! Why, I didn't like my husband when I married him ! I was mad after a dancing little barrister man! but I soon understood that Julius Gordridge was as good for me as anybody, for it is the duty of a woman to use her head, too, a little, and you will soon be quite fond — " "Ah, never!" " But, Rosie? you contradict me, Rosie? I tell you that you will: do you imagine, then, that I don't know ? But since you disdain O'Shannon for the moment, I should gladly get you some other mate, only where's the time? We should have to find the man, he would have to court you a little — before all which was over Arthur would be back upon us, and all the fat in the fire; so it can only be O'Shannon, you see. And isn't O'Shannon a lad that any girl should be glad of? sober, but no gawk, quick on the legs, larky with his knuckles and with the girls, they say — look what mince-meat he turned poor Arthur into, and how he tackled those six louts of policemen — " " Oh, Mama Gordridge, you have forgotten SHAN IN A NET 75 how a girl feels," pouted Rosie,her brow on Mrs. Gordridge's shoulder. " I?" breathed Mrs. Gordridge, shrinking: " what, am I so old? It is only like last week that I was flirting! I feel like thirty! And have I got to that now to ' forget how a girl — ' ? Well, how the young do look down upon the old, just as the rich do upon the poor, or as English people upon negroes. . . ." " No, Mama Gordridge, I didn't mean — " " But the thing is this, child, that the well- being of Arthur, and mine, depends upon this business: well, when I say that, what answer can you find to make to me?" Rosie could find no answer to make to her, but a sob broke from her bosom. " Well, then, let us take that as settled; and now — Well, what is it, James?" She spoke now to a man, who, coming to present a note on a tray, remarked that Under- kippur Price had asked him to give it, a note which, as Mrs. Gordridge's eyes moved over it, caused her mouth to go cross, and produce a sound of worry: — A note from Shan: referring to the corn-account, the pens, with a word as to poults and wild-bred cocks, and the dividing of the work between the under-keepers, he, Shan, 76 THE WHITE WEDDING being off that very day with his belongings, seeing that he had previously received warning from Lieutenant Gordridge to quit, and was going accordingly. . . . " Kiss me," said Mrs. Gordridge toRosie the moment she had read it . . ." now run away, we'll go more into it this evening," and, Rosie gone, she whispered with a certain eagerness to the serving- man: " Run down to the head- keeper's house, and say I want to see him here." Anne Hine, meantime, who had been pacing among the flower-beds, on noticing that pale thing that Rosie now was, pelting for the house to find some hole to cry in, came back to the summer-house, but was anew sent away by Mrs. Gordridge, just as the flunkey got back short of breath with the message that O'Shannon was hardly fit to be seen by a lady that day, being so gashed up (by the police), so would Mrs. Gord- ridge say in a message — " Go away," said the old lady, " tell Miss Hine there to come," and to Anne herself she said: " Fly down to O'Shannon's cottage, and tell him to be here immediately: don't come back without him "; so Anne went, and within ten minutes was back with Shan. At the summer-house door, then, stands Shan, SHAN IN A NET 77 tall, a bandage, aslant beneath his deer-stalker cap, covering his right eye; and, "yes, mum," he said, wondering what now was up. " Sit down, O'Shannon," said Mrs. Gordridge. " So you are going, are you?" " Yes, mum, I've been dismissed." " Where are you going to?" " I'll be lodging with my uncle on the Chase a bit, mum." "And then?" " I'm throwing up kippuring, mum, for it isn't likely that any squire about here would take me now after all this row that's been, and as I don't mean to desert this neighbourhood, I must only turn my hand to some other work." " You see, O'Shannon, all this trouble through setting up yourself in antagonism to your betters." " Betters, Mrs. Gordridge? Isn't that rather an old-fashioned sort of word? By the purposed the Maker and Urger of this world, there aren't any betters any more, mum, I give you my word." "So true: I forgot that. . . . You shouldn't be cheeky, O'Shannon! but I suppose you perceive that I am in your power now." " How in my power, mum? I only wish you 78 THE WHITE WEDDING were, I'd soon show you how fond I am of every- thing that owns the name of Gordridge" — of which saying Mrs. Gordridge, her eyes resting on his face, made a note in her mind. " Well," she said, " but isn't all this business of leaving the estate merely a bit of bounce, since you must know that I want you now?" " I didn't know that, mum, thank you; any- way, I couldn't stay, you know." " And why not?" " What, in the same place with that girl that has turned her back on me? getting glimpses of her? hearing her speak, may be. ... One is not a stock, mum. Here I couldn't stay, nor wouldn't." " Yet you just said that you meant to stay in the neighbourhood." " Not by my choosing though: I'd be away like a long-dog to Canada to-morrow, never again to see England so long as oak and ash do grow, if there wasn't a young calf that I'd promised someone to keep half an eye on — " " So you really meant to go away?" " I did, Mrs. Gordridge, and do." " Well, you are not to." " Thank you very much, mum, I'm sure; you have always been the same to me somehow, marvellously kind and bounteous, and I wish SHAN IN A NET 79 now I could stay, since you ask me to." " You are to remain where you are, O'Shan- non.' " But, mum, haven't I told you? It's hard enough to me to go from Glanncourt, and I wish to heaven it was only half possible — " " Be quiet, O'Shannon: I have both my hands full of joy and happiness for you." " For me, mum?" " Yes, for you." Shan, his eyes now cast upon the ground, chuckled a little grimly at this, and he said: "Why, Mrs. Gordridge, they say that there's no happiness save in the grave, since all this crea- tion's a false show, where we take gudgeons when we fish for grilse." " Let the creation alone," said the old lady, " the creation is a place with plenty of fun in it, at least for young people. O'Shannon, I am going to give you Rosie." Silence. . . . Shan, as the message of that gospel passed out of her mouth, had half started at her, as if to catch a ring falling, then had gradually sat again, while his jaws went quite white, and shook. " You didn't look for quite so much luck, I see," said the old lady, her eyes on his face. . . . 8o THE WHITE WEDDING " Well, men seem to be cheap machines to be agitated over the possession of a peach; it is only what was promised you, O'Shannon — " " Rosie?" breathed Shan, leaning secretly toward her. " Yes, Rosie, the Princess Royal." " But she won't have me ! " " She will." " Have you asked her? Has er said er would?" " Yes, that's all quite settled." At this Shan laughed within himself, a rather mad laugh, and he said: " What, to have her at last down there between the brook and the pens?" " Quite so — between the brook and the pens, or wherever else you please to have her." He thought it over, and eyeing the carpet askance, he remarked: " For five years I've been hearing her feet about the empty house, seen her asleep, may be, with her hair untidy when I came in from night-watching, or winking at me, or making a face at things with her nose sudden- like, as she does: it's a lonely little hole, too, the cottage, when one's alone." "Well, that'll soon be remedied, as I mean you to be married Tuesday next three weeks." " That's not long," said Shan, eyeing a spot SHAN IN A NET 81 on the carpet: " by then it can be all finished and done, and when she is once my wife, where's the man that could say no to it?" " Just so: marriage is like lock-jaw, fixed and final." " And the other one, now," said Shan, leaning still more keenly out to speak secretly: " hi\\ be none the wiser." " Precisely: that's why I am hurrying things on, since he may be quicker back than — " " Why, he may never be back! Many as fine a fellow has licked the dust in battle before to- day! " " Oh, come, you wouldn't wish him to be shot!" " But suppose he is shot, he would never be the wiser, and suppose he isn't shot, when he comes home and finds me safely wived, what can he say? His arms will be tied! I'll laugh at him!" " Be quiet, O'Shannon — But whatever is the matter with the man?" — for now Shan had covered his face, and the outburst of a sob con- vulsed his frame. " Tell me — what is it?" asked Mrs. Gordridge, and when she got no answer, she added: " Better go home and get a nap, and then when 82 THE WHITE WEDDING you are more presentable, come and have a talk with Rosie." Now, however, Shan had sprung straight, and the vociferation of his " No ! " made the old lady flinch, his face, of a rich red, shaking with passion as he stared at her. "No what?" she asked: "you are not to startle me, O'Shannon." " I say No," cried Shan anew. " Well, say No as often as you feel disposed, but please don't startle me." Shan stared at her, but now, his flare-up dying down, while the rich red bled out of his countenance, leaving it blanched, he now said meekly: " Forgive me, mum." " So what is the big No about?" asked Mrs. Gordridge. " I don't mean to marry Rosie Jones, mum, thank you," replied Shan, with a short-breath'd bosom. "What?" " No, mum." " Oh, that's lunacy: you go and get some sleep." " No, mum, that's the truth: I don't mean." " Then, what in God's name am I to do with all these distraught people?" exclaimed Mrs. SHAN IN A NET 83 Gordridge, spreading her palms, appealing to the ceiling; and Shan stood swinging his cap round and round on his forefinger. " Come, O'Shannon," said Mrs. Gordridge, " give one some sort of notion what gadfly has stung you now." " I say that I don't mean to, Mrs. Gordridge: I don't know that there is any reason which I could make quite clear to you." " But you know that Rosie Jones is almost like my daughter, that you will be a made man for life — I may mention that the dowry — " " Oh, I know all that, Mrs. Gordridge, but the moor-game and grouse mate together without any dowry, nor I don't think I was ever what could be called grasping — " " No, no, I didn't think that. . . . But what, then, has bitten you? Is it that Rosie is not for the moment furiously enamoured of you? I'll admit that much, seeing that there has lately been a certain flirtation — but, come, I'll let you into something: — she has only just confessed to me — just before you came, I declare it was — that she will soon come to like you, she said, after the marriage, because she admires your manly manners and independence of spirit, she said, your pretty way of using your pounders 60 84 THE WHITE WEDDING upon those louts of police-officers, your larky way of knocking around with all the girls, she said, of which she has heard, and you are a husband that any girl would be glad of, she said. So you see, O'Shannon. The darling child's heart is, so to say, a fire waiting all laid for you; you have only to put a lucifer into it." Shan stood with his surprised forehead lifted and alight at this enlivening tidings ! " Rosie said that, mum . . . ?" " Rosie," replied the old lady with an inclina- tion of the closed eyes. " What, this forenoon you mean? Just before I came here er said it?" he asked, curious for details. " Just before. She's all for you." " Bless her heart!" he cried half-alaugh. " Quite so. So now, O'Shannon, that much is settled, and I want you now to see Mr. Orrock as to the banns — " But now Shan groaned aloud. " WeU, what now, O'Shannon?" Mrs. Gord- ridge asked. " I couldn't, Mrs. Gordridge! " The old lady's mouth now went cross, making a sound of vexation at the man, saying : " O'Shan- SHAN IN A NET 85 non, you try my patience . . . Won't you marry Rosie, really?" " No, mum, really." " What on earth, then, is one to do? This is so perfectly exasperating! Do you not realise the situation, my man? If you do not marry her, my son may, and surely you comprehend that I could not stomach such a misery: so for my sake, O'Shannon — don't show yourself selfish; did you not say just now that you had a great regard for the name of Gordridge? I shall know just how much to think of that profession, if you continue to refuse me this little thing"; upon which Shan, seeing that it was for a Gordridge that he refused, exclaimed: "Ah, Mrs. Gord- ridge, you make it hard for me." Those heavy eyes of the House of Hanover now rested in judgment upon him some silent moments, and she asked: " Do you still, even after this personal appeal of mine on behalf of a family, after you yourself have averred that I have been benevolent to you, do you still say no?" " Aye, still, mum " " Go, go," said she, brushing him out with her hand, and as Shan went bowing, she drank out of her glass of egg-nog, beckoned to Anne 86 THE WHITE WEDDING Hine out amid the flowers, and as Anne ran, said to her : "Take me back now. . . . This O'Shan- non, for some reason or other, refuses to marry Rosie, so there seems to be nothing left: we shall be obliged to pack the poor child out to Kwang Chow. . . ." " Quite so, Aunt," answered Anne, and turned to hand the stick, to hold her shoulder as a prop, while up with a sigh of Atlas rose the old strategist. 8? VI SHAN ALL ENMESHED THAT same night about nine Anne Hine was droning aloud to Mrs. Gordridge in Mrs. Gord- ridge's cosy-corner out of Mrs. Gordridge's pet book, Gibbon, when she was interrupted by the arrival of two telegrams, one of them a last word of good-bye of Arthur's, who, just embarked with his battalion, was away, the other being in two words only — " Yes, Sheila " — an answer this to the telegram sent out to Quang Chow from Glanncourt that forenoon: " Can you receive Rosie Jones for me?" " So Arthur is off, poor fellow," sighed Mrs. Gordridge over an apple-wood fire; " if it hadn't been for this ignominy with Rosie, I shouldn't have let him go, such a rough time of the year, too . . . hear how the wind is howling round the house, and he out on the sea in it. How long before he'll be in South Africa, Anne?" " Between fourteen and eighteen days, I think. . . ." " Well, God go with Arthur. . . . They always say that the Gordridges are fortunate in their youth, and unfortunate after fifty: that's why 88 THE WHITE WEDDING Julius Gordridge just contrived to snap me up by a fluke, but lost me through his death at fifty-three. . . . Anyhow, that's all right about dear Sheila and Rosie — that's all right. Have you found out about the P & O boats?" " I have written to the Company, Aunt, and also to ask Lord Claude Goring to find out if anyone is going whom we could trust Rosie to. The through boats seem to leave the docks on alternate Thursdays, so since next Thursday will be too soon — " "Why too soon?" " Poor Rosie will be gone before she realises that she is going!" " But isn't that the best way to do things that are grim and disagreeable? Always ' bite into the sharp apple, ' as the Germans say, and have the whole misery over at the earliest moment. Tell me now how Rosie Jones takes it." Anne Hine smiled. " As dying cows take Eternity," she answered, " seeing that Quang Chow is a world as vague to her as the further fringes of the grave. When she gathered what was about to befall her, she gaped at me, Aunt, and whispered, ' how do you spell it, Anne? ' I am sorry for poor Rosie, Aunt!" " You are a most depressing^Jyoung woman," SHAN ALL ENMESHED 89 mourned Mrs. Gordridge, almost groaning: "I wish you wouldn't." " Wouldn't what, Aunt?" " Ton know — play conscience to everybody, stick sly pins into people. I dare say you are blithe enough in your heart at the banishment of the poor child, but you pretend to be pierced with pain, in order to make me feel my cruelty — " " Aunt, how very — !" went Anne, outraged. " Oh, we are none of us such inscrutable Rahus as we fancy, so don't suppose yourself unknown. . . . But what else did the poor child say?" " I— hardly like to tell, Aunt, lest I should happen to ' play conscience ' to anyone: I had better say that she danced at the mere thought of leaving all her old life here, and diving into something cold and unknown at the other end of existence, and I'd better not tell how the poor girl gaped, and staggered, and gave way, how her poor face — " Mrs. Gordridge groaned, even as with sudden peevishness she said: " All this through the fatuity of that O'Shannon! Can you not divine any motive why the man has acted in this mad fashion?' 90 THE WHITE WEDDING " I don't know, but I have a notion, Aunt, that there may be a treaty between O'Shannon and Arthur that Arthur is to marry her." " Now, how far-fetched! Why, the two fel- lows are sworn foes ! " " You are always right, Aunt," sighed Anne Hine faintly at the fire, over which she pored from the hearth-rug by the side of Mrs. Gord- ridge's great chair. " But is it not actually so?" asked Mrs. Gord- ridge: " did they not do battle for her like two savages? and O'Shannon came off the winner; so why has the wight acted in this wild way?" " People's hearts are more or less subtle machines, Aunt," remarked Anne, " and fre- quently ' sworn foes ' are even more in love each with each than most sworn friends are in enmity." " Facts are facts," said Mrs, Gordridge, "and the fact is that O'Shannon and Arthur are at war. Why, O'Shannon almost as good as said to me to-day that he wished Arthur might get shot." " I dare say he does," said Anne — " with one half of his heart, but, if it were to happen, probably the other half would break — " " More pretty rainbows and mirages — " SHAN ALL ENMESHED 91 " No, O'Shannon, I am sure, cherishes some sort of passion for Arthur, implanted into his nature from their youth, and last evening when Arthur released him from the police, O'Shannon was furiously moved by it, flew off on a bicycle somewhere — I think to the station to catch Arthur, and it is quite possible that they came then to some sort of an understanding which may explain O'Shannon's sudden passion for bachelorhood. It is beautifully noble of the fellow, if it be so, for his enthusiasm for Rosie more resembles a lunacy — " " Mirages," said Mrs. Gordridge: " game- keepers are not great heroes and self-immolators, so the man is either mad, or has some motive that I know nothing of." "You are certain to be right, Aunt," mur- mured Anne. "Well, go on with the big trouble," and Anne, taking up Gibbon from the rug, read of the Romans to the chorus of the gale, till now the brain of the old lady gave way to the droning, her brow dropping slumbrously, upon which Anne drowsed over her sketch-book leaves, her head leaning to the left for her palm to stroke down and down the left half of her dark hair, till late in the sounding night she retired last of 92 THE WHITE WEDDING the household; but, always the first to behold the daylight, very early the following morning she was at her delight, painting in The Meadows, when a man named Price, happening to pass close by her, rifle on shoulder, drawing after him a rabble of terriers, she becked and called him: " Price! So the head-keeper has left, has he?" " Aye, handed over the keys to Mr. Cochrane last evening, miss." " So where is he at present?" " Him did say as er was moving to his uncle aboove the Chase, miss, and his sticks he has put under the shanty in Sharp the blacksmith's back-yard." Anne drew her mink cloak closer round her shoulders, sketching with rather stiff fingers, it being still cold, the morning's glow yet young, and the early birds, the cows, the ground, all rich with jewels of dew. " I dare say you will be seeing him?" she said. " Aye sure, miss. ... Is there any message?" " No, I only wished — By the way, have you all been told that Mrs. Gordridge is going away?" "Well, now! I hadn't heard that. For long, miss?" " A few days, no doubt: only to take Miss SHAN ALL ENMESHED trip 93 to— Jones to London, who is taking a Persia." " Well, now! " went Price, " I hadn't heard that," and Anne Hine thought to herself: " he will inform O'Shannon, and O'Shannon, seeing that she is about to be lost both to Arthur and to himself, may now be tempted into having her. I wonder? He appears to be a gallant piece of spirit, and that should be grand to watch the moral tug and struggle. ... I hope he'll yield now to the flesh and the devil, for it is the only sure scheme for keeping our small Arthur from Rosie, and then for my own repose, for if he's great enough still to decline her, really this gamekeeper may become girt in colours all too beguiling to the organs of a girl's fancy." And in truth, just as Anne had foreseen, it was only four days later than Shan was hearing the news, not indeed from Price himself, but from a hawker to whom it had already spread through Price, for among those people, supposed to be the most " news-hunting " in England, rumour scoots wide-legged, like a goose pursued by a wolf. The hawker stood with his barrow on the road, and when Shan, who was sawing larch- wood by a well-side in a bower down below, had said that he needed neither bloater nor haddock 94 THE WHITE WEDDING that day, the hawker remarked: " May be you do know already that the folk at Glanncourt be going off." Shan stopped his humming and sawing a moment to say no, he didn't know, and hummed and sawed anew, whereat the chapman, touching his herrings and things into a witchinger arrange- ment, remarked: "Aye, they be going, Mrs. Gordridge, Miss Hine, and Miss Jones, all the three." " Hardly very probable at this time o' year," replied Shan: "but, then, you St. Briavel's bugs, you always know a great deal more than your prayers." " Well, I do have it from—" " Aye, you do have it from Mrs. Gordridge's self, I dare say. . . . Where do they say they are going to?" " Miss Jones, they do have it to say, be bound for Persia." " It's a wonder, now, they didn't say Japan! for that goes on further still down under the world." " Well, I only give you what I have got myself." " Gossiping, news-hunting lot," pshawed Shan, and sawed away, in a moment thinking no more of the thing. SHAN ALL ENMESHED 95 But later in the day, as a seed that, once sown, secretly grows, the fish-man's words again oc- curred to Shan, and more and more frequently kept recurring during the next three days, but merely as a curiosity of thought for the brain to amuse itself with, without any doubt at all in him as to the unfoundedness of the rumour; during which days, his uncle's cottage where he was staying being in a most lonely place, nothing more of the story had reached his ears, and it was only on the fourth evening about six o'clock, when he sat cleaning a fowling-piece beneath a beech-tree's shade, that something seemed to breathe into some deepest region of his brain: " but if it is true?" for now the seed, secretly growing, had peeped above ground, and within two seconds after the feeling " it may be true " was born in him, all his consciousness was rent with the shriek: " it is true !" Up at once he sprang, a pallid lad, and at once he ran — toward Glanncourt, with what purpose he could have given no account, only he did not doubt that, if she was really being banished to foreign parts, it was in order to bury her for ever from Arthur, and he had given his promise to Arthur to guard her for him. Well so far had he guarded her for Arthur, his heart knew it, 96 THE WHITE WEDDING singing a new song and marching-tune within him, so that, sawing his larch-woods during these days, he had hummed to himself for all the lark-music that yarned in his bosom, merry in his bereavement. But how now to guard her in England — but by marrying her? And since she was now to be lost to himself and to the other, too — what then? why not? And that sly fiend of self which is in each one leered inside his chest, tongue in cheek, echoing: " what then?" . . . "why not?" It was an ill wind that blew no one any good. . . . But Rosie might be already away, he was wholly in the dark, might not get to Glanncourt in time: and he ran rabidly, his hound, Snout, half mastiff, half bull-dog, bounding joyously about his toil like a flourish coiled about a sign- manual, and always his heart was raised in a sort of prayer for good lungs and the grace of run- ning, even as it kept repeating in a mechanical kind of way within him its " what then?" and its " why not . . .?" But now, as night deepened down, over the lonely road there dashed upon him a caleche whose dobbin was being furiously lashed by its driver, and Shan, casting a glance round as it SHAN ALL ENMESHED 97 galloped near upon him, panted aloud, now hard breathing: " Dr. Blood! Stop! I want you to—! " He got no farther, for the physician with a face as gorgeous as his name, lashing at his nag, shouted out at him: " Out of the road! am late to say good-bye to Mrs. Gordridge — !" and was gone away. " Now may God help a chap," whispered Shan inwardly, knowing now that she must be going by " the seven-forty-five," and there were five miles still to run, a distance hardly great to him ordinarily, but the bigness of his present winded him : and with all his entrails raised in a sort of prayer he raced. 98 VII SHAN BOTH HOT AND COLD IT was night when he hied up the tump of the Morplepiece, halted there half-a-minute breath- less, and now in straight career to the Hall hied down across the brook, and up the steep on the other side; but at the swing-gate which leads to the path between the north cover and shrub- bery he came upon the puny Chuckabutty musing over the gate in his fez-cap, smoking a cheroot to the moon, to whom Shan gasped: " Mrs. Gordridge at home?" " She's gone away," said the Hindoo chef. "How long?" " Chuckabutty now began to chuckle, saying: " Why, you are in a sweat — !" "How long?" cried Shan. " Hardly just gone, I think, since — " Shan span and ran, away past the home-farm, casting vain glances to see the stable-clock through the foliage, down away southward through a small gate into the turnpike road, no time to be out of breath now, only a pair of legs that prayed and rained their steps. Through the village he hied, and when it was well behind him, SHAN BOTH HOT AND COLD 99 and still he could see no sign of any carriage, hope perished in him, but on climbing the height of the next hill he could spy in the moon- shine on a farther hillside a carriage which one horse was hauling at a walk up the steep with petty precipitate steps: and he was quickly trotting with it. He could not answer when Anne bobbed forth her head to ask what was the matter, but after some minutes, when he was understood to say that he wished to talk with Mrs. Gordridge, the carriage now stood still, and Mrs. Gordridge looked out. " I could hardly talk to you here," he said at her ear — for there sat Rosie and a lady's-maid within the brougham: so now Mrs. Gordridge groaned and got herself down to him on the road, saying: " Be quick, O'Shannon, or I shall miss my train." " Between us, mum," panted Shan secretly, " is that correct about Rosie Jones being off to a foreign land?" " Well, what then?" " But, mum, that was only my fun about not wanting to marry Rosie." " Fun!" "That was all, mum!" ioo THE WHITE WEDDING " So are you willing to marry her now?" " Rather, mum. Everybody about knows very well--" " But who is it that is mad, the man or I? for it must be one or the other. Fun?" " That was all, mum! I declare, it's enough to make one laugh!" " What is enough to make one laugh?" " The whole thing, mum ! " " Which whole thing? O'Shannon, I hope you are quite compos mentis. Do you mean that you were not serious that forenoon when you refused Rosie, when you shouted out ' No! ' and shocked me?" "What, Rosie, mum? my little cousin who was always a heart's idol to me?" Mrs. Gordridge gave vent to a laugh, very relieved and pleased at heart, though, shy of appearing so, she said: " I'm sure some fly has stung the fellow! So, then, it was 'fun'? and since this fun has cost me £75 for booking a ticket, no doubt you'll be prepared to pay it me back, supposing I agree now to give Rosie to you ?" " Anything you choose, mum," said Shan. " But what has been your object — ? for it can't well be a fact that you were actuated by some consideration for Mr. Arthur — " SHAN BOTH HOT AND COLD 101 " Oh, mum, don't bring in your son, for Heaven's sake: I have nothing to do with your son, mum." " At any rate, O'Shannon, you do undertake positively at present, if I should prove so weak as to yield to your entreaty?" " You may be certain, mum." " Well, certainly, you do not deserve it, but I'll see what can be done for you," and she fluttered back elated to the carriage, which, presently turning back toward the village, left Shan there, his handkerchief at his face. He did not return to his uncle's, but took a bed in Albington, where, at the Bunch of Grapes, he gathered a crowd round him that night, and, loud with devilry, astonished every- one by his lavish treating, making the cash fly, himself deeply drinking, though known as " an abstainer "; so that one winked at another: " Him be gone a bit mad at quitting Glann- court — that's it." A late riser the next day, Shan walked up the half-mile of shady road to Glanncourt with the gladsomeness of his health, of the sunshiny morning, of his approaching marriage, showing in his jauntiness of step, though it was strange, too, with what fury he slashed with the switch 102 THE WHITE WEDDING in his hand at hemlock or honeysuckle flowering in the hedges, and curious how he cut his poor Snout when the hound darted after a motor-car that posted past; and meeting near The Meadows gate a loose-bosomed woman way- faring with a freight of vegetables, to her he sang cheerily out, " Hello, Mother Higgins, how goes it this morning?" " Lar, Shan," she answered with a certain Welt-schmerz, or world-smart, " I gat a bile an me tit this marning, and Bella her's gat one an hers; but here! a word wi' thee — Pruie just asked me if I did know where thee's to be found, for Mrs. Gordridge, er said, has sent out a boy in buttons asking everywhere after thee," upon which Shan quickened his steps till he got before the low front of Glanncourt, and before long was being led to a room, when out of it stepped Rosie, her eyes on the ground, till suddenly sighting Shan, she stood whitish, Shan, too, standing as whitish on a sudden as she. " Morning," he could hardly be heard to say, and the girl's lips barely stirred, and her regard struck him dead with disdain; and all at once that ghost of Rosie made a dart past him, like one escaping blindly, and was away. Shan was now brought before Mrs. Gord- SHAN BOTH HOT AND COLD 103 ridge, but so confounded by his encounter with the ghost outside, that for some time he could lend no attention to what she said to him. There with easel and palette at the window opposite the great cedar on the lawn sat Anne Hine, smiling her fine smile at mankind, while Mrs. Gordridge, cowering by the fire, informed Shan of all that had now to be brought about by him and her. " To-morrow at three," she said, " I shall have Mr. Spender here, and you can come and see what I propose as to a settlement, but as to seeing Rosie herself, you mustn't yet, for with all this chopping and changing between O'Shannon and China, the poor child is now naturally half out of her wits; but if you come — what's to-day? Thursday, the twentieth — come on Saturday to see and may be take her for a walk; only you shouldn't start pawing the child about yet, O'Shannon, that is, if you are not desirous of having your eyes scratched out." " Why, mum, don't you suppose I know how to keep my hands in their place?" Shan wished to know; " anyhow, till she becomes a bit fonder of me, as she quickly will, for she's said it herself." " Rosie has? I am very pleased! To whom did she say that?" 104 THE WHITE WEDDING " Why, to you, mum, didn't she?" " Didn't you tell me so in the summer-house, mum, how she asserted that she admires my — ?" " Why, so true, I forgot that . . . quite so. Only, don't be too crude and brutal with her, woo her by inches, she will soon — By the way, what about your ' goods '?" " My sticks I've left down at Sharpe's, the blacksmith's, mum, for the time." " Well, you had better part with the lot, inas- much as all that bachelor stuff is no use for a young wife, and I will undertake to have the cottage furnished throughout by one of the London firms." " Truth to tell, mum, I'd sooner furnish it myself," observed Shan, eyeing the floor. " But how much money have you on the whole?" " Over two hundred pounds, Mrs Gordridge." " But what good is that? You are not to be independent, O'Shannon, and you are to re- member that Rosie is a well-nurtured girl, grown used to elegance. If you are so eager to spend your £200, you had better pay me back the ^75 of passage-money which I have spent through your ' fun ' — " SHAN BOTH HOT AND COLD 105 " I'll pay it back this day, mum." " You are not to be independent, O'Shannon, I say! What you ought to do is to creep on your two knees to worship me and President Kruger, and not be independent." " I worshipped you years before, mum, so to speak," answered Shan, a smile in the eyes: "I don't know so much about this Kruger." " Kruger, too: for suppose Mr. Arthur had not gone to the war — " " Oh, do, do, Mrs. Gordridge, don't bring in your son! " cried Shan with sudden fretfulness now, " that's a man that I want to have nothing to say about." " If you like me, O'Shannon, you must like my son! " Shan groaned. " Is that all you have got to say to me, Mrs. Gordridge?" he asked. " I think so. Be sure to see Mr. Orrock at once. . . . And, O'Shannon, I am to depend this time upon your running straight ? There is to be no more mysterious ' fun '. . .? I declare there's something in me now that doesn't feel quite easy about the man since his queer conduct, as if I were building houses on quick-sands ! And yet I always thought that no one was so reliable . . . ! " io6 THE WHITE WEDDING "Why, what do you think of me, mum?" asked Shan, rising; " I intend to marry Rosie, and when I once have her, no doubt I shall know how to hold her." " Oh, you go away," pshawed Mrs. Gord- ridge to the grate, little guessing at his troubled mind, while Anne Hine, who much better divined, smiled over her brush. But this feeling of uneasiness in the old lady was not baseless, for that ship of fate that was freighted with Rosie's and Shan's marriage was to have no roseate trip. For one fact, it became known that Rosie was very indisposed, and then it almost looked as if Shan himself by his own behaviour was trying all he could to make the marriage impossible. On the very day of the settlement, old Pruie, getting into talk with Anne in a walk of the New Garden, in the gloaming, in telling her how Shan had brought up a bed and some things, and was now in the cottage " just like in the old time," added, " but oh, him be queer, miss, er bent like the old lad at all." " In what way?" asked Anne. " Him be queer, miss — it be hard to tell — but after being in the cover all night wi' the dogs, er hasn't slept a wink, only sits wi's legs afore him, SHAN BOTH HOT AND COLD 107 and they do have it to say er made every one of the fellows in the place tight the night before last wi's money, nor some of them haven't been right since." " That seems naughty," said Anne. " Oh, they are a loutish lost lot down in that village, miss, believe me, for as I always do say to myself, it bent the drink that's bad, it's the people; people do blame the drink, and think it's the drink that's bad, but that's all a mistake, because er bent the drink that's bad, it's them as do take the drink." " You are too subtle, Pruie," remarked Anne; " but it is to be hoped that your master himself wasn't — " " Oh, him never was tight in his life, I don't suppose, though they do have it to say er weren't fur off it. Aye, him be queer someways — be- tween us him be just terrible bitter against Mr. Gordridge, him will say to me, or to himself rather, as er did this morning, ' what have I got to thank'n for?' er said, sitting on the step: ' if him rescued me from the police,' er said, ' it was only keeping of his promise, as any man 'ood have done, and I do owe nothing to he ' — " " All that means very little," said Anne, " for O' Shannon does not really dislike Lieutenant io8 THE WHITE WEDDING Gordridge, but he probably feels that he is breaking some promise, and yielding to a temptation, so he is bitter against Lieutenant Gordridge, for people are always bitter against those whom they feel that they are wronging, Pruie." " You wouldn't say," went Pruie. " But that was only this morning him was like that, miss, this afternoon er be as spry as you like, er be off to St. Arvens to try on a new coat, having to see Miss Rosie to-morrow in the Hall " — in which new coat Anne was sufficiently interested to watch from a window the following gloaming till Shan turned up with a Homburg hat and glorious cravat, to be led into a book-room where Rosie, new-risen from bed that afternoon, volumed in a shawl of Spanish lace,waited for him. Shan, for his share, followed the flunkey who led him with the reluctance of one being taken to the stake, and when he was announced, and the door closed behind him, and he found him- self alone with Rosie in a room in which the growing gloom was beshone only by a glow from the grate, his tongue was tied, Rosie, too, remaining dumb, ghostly vague in her lace, a Whistler vision, standing with her hand on a chair; and during some moments those two, SHAN BOTH HOT AND COLD 109 whom the cynic Mr. Orrock was soon to unite for life, stood as stupefying as lions let loose one upon the other. " I was sorry to hear that you have been bad," Shan managed to stammer at last. " It is all right," she said. " I have brought you these," he next said, putting a bunch of George Bruants roses on a pedestal. " You are very obliging," replied Rosie. " Four of them are from the garden, and the rest James Downie gave me," observed Shan, but it was a blunder to expound the origin of the roses, Rosie returned no answer, and now he stood struck. " You may take a seat, if that pleases you," she said presently. And at once he felt that she was " sticking-on side," meant to show him the fine lady, and this, increasing his feeling of inferiority, completed Shan's sheepishness. He sat on the very edge of an arm-chair over against where she stood gray and tall-looking in that gloaming, and all that he could discover to say was: "Well, Rosie, here we are." She made no answer. " Won't you talk to me?" he asked. i io THE WHITE WEDDING " I am prepared to reply to any observation which you may be pleased to make," she answered. " It is like this, look," said he: " you were going to be shipped away like a clutch of eggs, and when I gathered that it must be either that or going to the altar with you, I came forward and offered to take you." " Ah! I am the victim of a philanthropy . . ." " The victim — ha, ha ! — yes, that's your way of putting it; ' the victim of a philanthropy ' — yes, very well put. But you will be just to me, Rosie, I hope: no doubt you have been told that a fortnight ago almost, just after the war broke out, I was given the chance of marrying you, and what did I say to it? I said no. Couldn't quite tell you just by what muscle I managed it, but done it was. Aye, I did it that day: I said no." " Why did you, when you knew that Mrs. Gordridge would be giving more or less money with me?" " That's of no importance why, but I did it — in spite of the more or less money that Mrs. Gordridge would be giving with you, Rosie. So you see that it isn't that I'm grasping after you, for I said no, and it was only when you were being shipped off — " I SHAN BOTH HOT AND COLD in " That was no business of yours, if I was being shipped off." " But which would you rather, be shipped off to Providence knows what far port of the sea, or be married to me?" " Frankly, I think I'd rather be shipped off, since you ask me," replied Rosie to that rash query: " but, of course, I am quite in Mrs. Gordridge's hands, and into whatever sty my guardian likes to cast me, I have to submit to be cast." " Why, Rosie," cried Shan, " can a girl be more cruel to a man who worships her than a terrier to a rat?" " I do not intend to be cruel, but I don't mind if I am," Rosie confessed. " But, Rosie," said Shan through a choky throat in a hoarse tone, " you don't know, I am not a happy man, have some pity on me." " No one has any pity on me" " Well / have pity on you, since you say that you need pity," murmured Shan yearningly. " You are very obliging, but to be frank, your pity and all your other feelings are matters of complete indifference to me." " But is that quite right, now? We are about to be husband and wife — " ii2 THE WHITE WEDDING " We shall be finely matched." " No, never that, since I am never half fit to fall and kiss your little finger, but if you don't egg on yourself against me, you'll soon be caring more for me, I trust, as you've admitted yourself — " "/admitted?" ' " Yes, dear, to your Mama — don't say that it is not true, even if it isn't — not as a mate, may be, you won't be caring for me, but as your poor spaniel you will, for you know, Rosie, I never considered you as quite the same flesh and blood as myself or anybody, but as an angel to be worshipped, as a white image in a shrine, and these five years I have only dreamed of marrying you, dear, so as to show you how a man can be a hound at your sweet feet, dear, with a humble heart before God, to kiss the hem of your gar- ment, as when the people kissed the hem of the Lord's robe, and that healed them of all their broken hearts, Rosie "; now Shan's utterance choked, but he came bowed down, and laid his mouth on the hem of Rosie's robe. " This is nonsense," murmured Rosie with an averted face in a tone of patient boredom which was mainly real, but more or less stagey, too: " if you know what is to your advantage, you will inflict upon me such exhibitions as seldom as SHAN BOTH HOT AND COLD 113 possible, since they only bore me," upon which Shan sprang straight, answering: "No, I mean to inflict them upon you as frequently as my soul speaks, Rosie, till you commence to under- stand, and to answer to it." " That will be never, then, so don't flatter yourself, you will only be the more disillusioned," she said. " But I don't despair, not a bit ! you wait, you don't know yet what's coming for you, you see," now cried Shan, who, standing now close to her, though he could barely see her face in that arrased room, was inhaling fugitive fumes of perfume from her being, " you can't even conceive yet ! I shall be having you so warm in my arms — you don't know Shan O'Shannon, I am as wild inside as ninety-nine climbing mow- fires! — I shall be leading you such a dance of love, that even if you be a snow-flake, I shall be making you flush." " Indeed?" breathed Rosie, eyeing the floor, and she added in a low tone: " you will only be doing bad for yourself. . . ." " So you say at present," replied Shan: " but you wait for three or four months of me, and by then you will be able truly to sign yourself ' Mrs. O'Shannon,' with a flourish to it." 8 ii4 THE WHITE WEDDING " But just now I was an image in a shrine, now it is another tune, I am to be wildly whirled in some kind of climbing fires: I don't think that you quite know your own mind." " Who could, do you think, when he is by you?" he asked: " but don't folks kiss the idols that they adore? The Creator did not knead up that piece of flesh all out of cream and peach- pulp, Rosie, only to be knelt down before, but to be kissed, too. Why, bless me, I've seen old men of eighty, and old women, too, Rosie, stop on the road to gape after you with greed, and to mumble to themselves what a bliss you are; for myself, I believe if I was a stock or a stone, I'd stir when you stepped close to me, yes, I fancy I'd scent your step, and stir: and now it is my fate to have you — down there by ourselves in the old house — I don't believe it one bit, for it sounds beerified enough, but it is true, I am to own you, it has happened so, and where's the man who dares say no to it? So I intend to grasp and use what the good God in His goodness grants me, you see, and to fuse you like wax in a wildish fire's furnace, as well as worship you, and I want you to let me put on this ring — " Rosie drew back. " Ring? No, I have only undertaken to wear one ring of yours." SHAN BOTH HOT AND COLD 115 " Oh, you have to," and having now her hand, he drew her to put on the ring, but, on a sudden, forgetting the ring, had her bound to his bosom, devouring her mouth, nor did Rosie struggle in the least, giving herself as a rag to that greed which had whiffed her off her feet, though the moment that he released her she stamped at him, and they remained some feet apart in the dark, dumbly hearing each other's laboured breathing. " Don't be cross," said Shan meekly, " though you should be, for I promised your Mama not to ... Not the only promise in my life that I have broken, may be. Anyhow, it's done, I've kissed a girl, and that girl's Rosie " — Shan spoke now in a kind of reverie, with the naivete of a child — " I kissed Frances Price and Julia Howley one Sunday afternoon under the hedge of Perkin's Clause a few weeks after I was thirteen, and they were my last kisses — till now this one." " I am not interested," said Rosie; " though they say — " "Well, what?" " That you have not the reputation of being quite such a St. Anthony as you say — so I have been told . . . not, of course, that I care a fig. . ." " Who is this St. Anthony?" Sa ii6 THE WHITE WEDDING " A person who disapproved of girls, they say." c Why, can't one know how to knock around with the young women for a lark without going any farther? I have spun them all round the waist — " " I am not interested, really." " Well, may I put on the ring now?" " I'd prefer that than to be subjected afresh to what you just did to me. " " You'll soon be liking it better." "Shall I?" " So hold out your hand. . . ." Rosie now leant aside and switched on the light, and now those eyes of Shan, that mostly had a ray of merriment in them, saw her in her shawl, with a Rubens rose that rode on the movement of her bosom, as she held her already glittering finger for his ring with a little disgust hung on her lower lip; sudden Shan dropped before this revelation of a fair lady that was to be his, and, having pressed on the ring, once more put his lips to her robe. " There, that's done," he said, rising, " and I am grateful to you, Rosie, from my heart; Mrs. Gordridge suggested that you might go for a stroll, I don't know — " SHAN BOTH HOT AND COLD 117 " As you see, I am not well." " I see that. Well, I won't keep you. May I come again on Monday?" " Not Monday." "When?" " There is no need — You will soon be having a very great deal of me, it seems. . . . You will be told when." " Well, I must live on that; good-bye, and don't be downhearted, now: I'd be killing my- self for you, if that would save you any heart- ache, but killing myself would only mean foreign parts for you. Dear, good-bye." He pressed her hand tight, and went; and Rosie, after putting out the light, sat over the grate in the dark, gazing into the fire. Yet a new experience awaited her the next morning when, after pacing down the half-mile to the village with Anne, preceded by a little crowd of eight maid-servants, she sat in the church: for, immediately after reading out that Nicene Creed in which he little believed, Mr. Orrock was all of a sudden calling out her name, publishing her banns. There in the family-pew Anne Hine sat smiling, but Rosie's face flew into crimson, and then was white, this having come like a bolt upon her: for Mrs. Gordridge, always ii8 THE WHITE WEDDING a grim, if a wise, surgeon, desiring to accustom her mind in all ways to the idea of the marriage, had urged her to be at church that day, but had uttered no word as to any banns. At this news there was " movement " enough throughout St. Jude's that forenoon, half of the throng of eyes turning toward Rosie's distress, and half toward Shan, who, ever a regular church-goer, heard it with a low head in his seat near the door. But the effect upon Shan of this hearing of his banns, of feeling himself as it were half-married already, was anything but happy, for that same night the lad broke out in an extraordinary fashion, making such a scandal as was never known, and it was with pallid flesh and shaky hands that his housekeeper, meagre old Pruie, sought out her friend, Anne, on the Monday evening, to ask her if she thought that it would all be getting to Mrs. Gordridge's ears. " Mrs. Gordridge already knows something," breathed Anne Hine close over her sketch-book, sketching beneath a calm arch of sky in which one only star psalmed a solo before the chorus- roar, " she can hardly help knowing. . . . But what exactly happened?" " Him got real tight, miss," answered Pruie secretly, " and everybody else in the village SHAN BOTH HOT AND COLD 119 wi'n seemingly- — Sunday night, too, why, shame ought to have covered their face, and him that all the world do regard as such a tidy,* God-fearing young fellow, what a pity it be. Him was more like a wild lion than a man, miss, they do say er had the strength of ten, for after making them all tight, er turned on them wi's fists, and er was a free fight, till they all runned away frightened from him, and four of them be in their beds to-day wi' broken bones and noses. Then when nobody was left to fight wi', him turned round and fair wrecked the bar of The Grapes, and er caught up Griffiths' nag in his arms, which they do say three men couldn't lift, miss, and er runned burdened wi'n down the street, and er hurled'n down the well — " " How splendid! " breathed Anne Hine. " That's cider, you see, that's what the cider do do. . . . But O, miss, if you had seen his eyes when er got home! I was there waiting up, wondering where he'd got to, and the minute him come, and his eyes fell on me, er laughed aloud, and er sang out, ' well, you old messer ! look out for yourself!' — and, miss, er makes one dart after me! If it wasn't for the table, he'd have had me sure, but I skipped round like a * Respectable. 120 THE WHITE WEDDING sparrow and skipped upstairs, and by the time er come up, I was under the bed; him searched and him searched for me, muttering to himself, oh, er searched earnest, miss, and my heart was in my throat the same as if er was a ghost searching for me, but er searched every crack except just under the bed — it was only God's mercy. Then him went down again, and I listened to him breaking up of everything, the table, the crockery — nothing be left whole in the place." " Which only shows that the man's gallant skull is virgin to alcohol," murmured Anne; " but how has he got on to-day?" " To-day him hasn't uttered one word to me, miss, nor er wouldn't touch his breakfast, but er sat under that beech-tree aboove the brook for hours wi's brow down on his knees, feeling seedy no doubt. I did keep an eye on him from the cottage, and what do you suppose I see'n do? Him do always keep in his brown jacket the photograph of a boy in an Eton jacket, miss, which I do delieve to be Lieutenant Gordridge's photograph, so him takes this out of his breast- pocket, and er looks at it a bit, then er chucks it from him toward the brook; but it wouldn't go into the brook for him, er went all sky-larking SHAN BOTH HOT AND COLD 121 edgeways through the air, so him sprang up and caught'n, all red in the face er was, and rent'n to bits, and tossed the bits into the brook; then er crouched down again under the beech wi's brow on his knees for hours." " Well, this looks troublous for the wedding," remarked Anne, putting up her sketch-book; and walking to the Hall, she asked herself: " Shall I be quite sorry if the wedding does not come off? Isn't this old Shan-lad as much too good in his way for my Rosie as Arthur Gord- ridge is in his? And it can hardly come off, if he is to continue in this frantic mood of remorse " — for she was aware that Mrs. Gordridge had declared that if Shan only once more broke loose in this fashion, she would refuse to let him be Rosie's husband. But this mood of Shan's was soon enough to reel into wholly another mood, one even more dangerous to that cranky ship of fate that carried his marriage : for near eleven of the Wednesday morning following that stormy Sunday night, Shan being then again seated be- neath his beech-tree, a telegram was handed him whose influence upon his mind was to prove no less than mighty. It came from the Cape, and thus ran: " Arrived safe. Inform my mother. Thanks. Arthur." 122 THE WHITE WEDDING Quick was its effect: for the moment Shan had read it, he raised himself, and went with roam- ing feet here and there over the bit of broken ground on which he stood, like some vague wight who seeks some object on the ground, but forgets quite what, and he rubbed the telegram over his cheeks and over his mouth with a sound of bubbling and of sobbing, and a sort of daft laugh of a mother. Later in the day he got himself piloted to Mrs. Gordridge's presence, to inform her that Mr. Arthur had safely arrived, for he had got a telegram; and when Mrs. Gordridge in a state of amazement exclaimed: " But this is grotesque that Arthur should have telegraphed to someone else than me! " Shan stood and laughed at her. During the ensuing four days, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, on which last day his banns were again published, Shan O'Shannon hardly ate, hardly slumbered, hardly did any work, shirked a meeting with his sweetheart: what was going on in the game-keeper's nut no one knew, no one could guess; and on the Monday he disappeared. 123 VIII SHAN VANISHED "WHERE, then, is the man gone to?" asked Mrs. Gordridge on the Tuesday evening, seated on a heap of quilts in the head-keeper's cottage: " he has no earthly right to take himself off the estate in this way: I declare this man is becoming the greatest anxiety of my life ! " " I conjecture," said Mr. Orrock, " that he is only gone to Gloucester or somewhere, to see may be after his wedding garments, because — " but he was interrupted by a louder row of the hammering, rasping, sawing, steaming, which was being made upstairs by the London fur- nishers still at their work in the last of the twilight. " But why should he slink off in this singular fashion to get clothes?" Mrs. Gordridge wished to know. " Why should he do any of the odd things which he has lately done?" asked Dr. Blood, sitting on a dado all among shavings: " Fm afraid that here is a case in which Socialism and Free-thought have brought about a state of the spiritual part of the man — " 124 THE WHITE WEDDING " A state of the digestion, may be," said Mr. Orrock: " O'Shannon is not a free-thinker, nor have I any closer listener to my sermons, or rather my lectures — " " That may account for the poor man's going wrong," grumbled Dr. Blood. Now, this grumble Mr. Orrock, pacing about, could scarcely hear in that row, but he guessed what had been said, and answered: " Precisely what I said last week when I heard of Perkins' little girl's decease: I said: ' I need hardly ask if Dr. Blood attended her.' " " Never even saw the child," said Dr. Blood; " I was on my way to her when she died." "Ah, you see. . . . The poor little girl clung on to life for days, but on learning that the doctor was coming, gave way to despair, and sighed her last." " How trying! " now pouted Mrs. Gord- ridge: " can't you two ever be conscious of the presence of third persons when you get to- gether? You are so preoccupied with each other, like piston and cylinder, that you are absent to all else beneath the sun, till it becomes really unmannerly! I was asking, Richard, why you should suppose that O'Shannon would go off to get clothes — " i SHAN VANISHED 125 " Oh, Aunt," remarked Anne Hine, now turn- ing inward from regarding the sunset's death- drama, " do you suppose that O'Shannon has gone to get any clothes? I doubt if any of us will see Shan O'Shannon again. ..." " Now for the augur of evil," groaned Mrs. Gordridge. " It seems to me so clear now," said Anne, " that O'Shannon must have promised not to marry Rosie: what else can be the meaning of that word ' Thanks ' in Arthur's cable to him from the Cape? or why else should Arthur wire his arrival to O'Shannon at all, sign the wire ' Arthur? and be so wise as to send it almost a full day before sending one to Aunt herself? For O'Shannon received his at eleven in the morn- ing, and Aunt did not receive one until seven in the evening. The whole business was delibe- rately contrived by Arthur in order to tickle and please O'Shannon to the man's simple heart, to drench him in flattery with the ( inform my mother? and so to keep him to his word: and I believe that O'Shannon means to keep his word." " Oh, don't be sibylline," said the old lady: " if there was any such understanding, would O'Shannon ever for one thing have let the banns be published? would he ever — " 126 THE WHITE WEDDING " Oh, but O'Shannon quite broke down when Rosie was going out to China," replied Anne; " he must have said to himself, ' she's going to be lost to us both, so I'll have her,' and he did evi- dently mean to have her, for those outrageous bouts of his were only due to a muggy state of his conscience, to his secret feeling that he was breaking his vow, however good the excuse; but when Arthur's artful cable came, the fellow fell fervently in love with him anew, and resolving once more to keep his vow, he once more renounced Rosie, and ran away: that's my read- ing of him, and I doubt if we shall see him again." " But it was not until days after getting the cablegram from Arthur that he went away," remarked Mr. Orrock: " it would hardly be the cablegram that caused him to go." " Only five days: — it took him that time to make up his mind," said Anne. " You make the man out to be mad," now said the old lady coldly, " for he must be aware that if he is not here on the wedding-day, Rosie will at once be banished from someone's reach, just as she was being banished when he inter- vened to stop her from going before : so, if he has run away, his motive can't well be Arthur's SHAN VANISHED 127 good, and it is quixotic to think of such a thing, inasmuch as Glanncourt is not Laputa, nor is the world a town of gold up in the clouds, and game-kippurs do not act out of the normal for their master's good. There is undoubtedly some sort of amity now existing between Arthur and O'Shannon, as that cable seems to show, but — what is it all about? Oh, it is not fair of Arthur to puzzle me! But O'Shannon will be back to- morrow, I know, for the man is keen to marry Rosie, and therefore will marry her, and must; only I wish he wouldn't cause me all these head- aches." " Neither this uproar nor this odour of paint and paste can be good, since you have a head- ache—" began Mr. Orrock. " She doesn't mean physical headaches! " screamed Dr. Blood, " she means a spiritual — " " She means a — physical — headache" insisted Mr. Orrock. " That she doesn't, then." "Ah! She does." " How tiresome," mourned Mrs. Gordridge, now rising, " come, let us go . . ." and she made her way back to the mansion with the painfully slow progress of grub. That night at ten she sent down to the cot- 128 THE WHITE WEDDING tage to find out if there was any sign of Shan; but Shan had not come back, and during the next day, the Wednesday, there was no coming nor news of him. Meantime, the bridal preparations went bravely on, as if no Shan had vanished, the old lady believing what she hoped, that he must reappear: Rosie beheld herself in mirrors in hats which rolled with ostrich-feathers furnished from the Rue de la Paix, and in a new robe of sable as heavy as a bear; the wedding-day was nigh, the wedding-cake already waited white on the morning-room table, and Chuckabutty, the chef, who already was affording foretastes of tipsy-cake, rout-cakes, and meringues, had now mayonnaise of salmon in the mind's eye; the cottage, too, was almost ready, the electric light, the piano, Satsuma jars were installed, and Dresden figurines costumed like milkmaids en fete and like gallants Louis XVI : Shan alone was wanting, and several days rolled by, but bore no tidings of Shan. Each morning, each evening, a horseman was despatched to his uncle away up on the Chase to enquire for tidings: the uncle had nothing to tell. " Never mind," said Anne to Rosie, lacing SHAN VANISHED 129 Rosie in a fairy pair of stays in front of a mirror, " don't fret, he will come. . . ." " I should like to catch myself," replied Rosie: " may be never come." " Be quiet, you know that you will be awfully annoyed if you are disappointed," said Anne, now tickling her with fixed teeth. " Oh! " shrieked Rosie, darting off, shrieking with laughter, " don't tickle me when you know how ticklish I am! Oh! don't!" but Anrie Hine with her long finger hunted her to the bed, on which Rosie gave up shrieking, and Anne tickled her there, till, kissing her, she said: " You see, you have altogether forgotten poor Arthur for O'Shannon, or you could never be so crazy with gaiety." " A girl has got to giggle sometimes," answered Rosie, " according to the moon; if I laugh it is because this other one is gone to Kingdom-come." " Never mind, he'll be here for the wedding- bells. . . . Poor me, I have no wedding-bells, you see." " I should willingly change places with you, if you would with me," said the other, and Anne turning her face away, answered nothing. But Shan did not show his nose, and Rosie, 9 130 THE WHITE WEDDING half-drowsing in her bed, had him now in the thoughts of her head, marvelling ... for he was to be her husband, after all. She thought of death by accident over the quarry-cliffs, of suicide, of an arrest by the police for his recent riots: but all these seemed far-fetched: he could hardly be dead, inasmuch as his dog, which had gone with him, had not come back. With regard to Anne's guess that some sort of a league existed between Shan and Arthur, this was so very far beyond the scope of Rosie's compre- hension of the heart of man, that it had no part in her thoughts at all. But Shan did not come! "If he doesn't come," remarked Mrs. Gordridge angrily on the Sunday, at about the hour when the banns were being published for the third time, "I'll make him pay back every penny both of that first .£75 passage-money, and of the second .£75 that I shall have to spend: that is, if I can catch him." " I doubt if Shan O'Shannon would prove quite a drowsy fish to catch! " replied Mr. Cochrane, her land-steward, with whom she was taking counsel. The old lady had a face of care. " Was there ever anything so unsearchable as this fellow's behaviour?" she asked. " What do SHAN VANISHED 131 you think? — you are a man of the world — will he turn up or not?" Mr. Cochrane, gazing down upon a ground made up of Persian Yellows just outside the con- servatory-door, shrugged without answering. " I have got three anonymous letters," ob- served Mrs. Gordridge, " two giving me to know that we are never again to behold O'Shannon, and the third that we shall — illiterate scribbles: I take it that they have no weight?" " Oh, no," was the reply; " of course, the country-side, being in a fever, will write, but the notes mean nothing." " I dreamed of fires last night," muttered Mrs. Gordridge, " and first thing this morning, on glancing out, I watched a crowd of crows going . . . Oh, well, we must only wait and see what the morrow brings forth." But the morrow did not bring forth Shan, and still the morrow after, the wedding-morning, wrought and dawned, but brought not Shan forth — a heavy November day, the third of the month, burdened with drizzles and breezes yearning in music through the yews and the dreary old cedar, wittf the sun low in Cancer at Hallowmas; and Mrs. Gordridge, learning the morning's ugly news as she was getting her ga 132 THE WHITE WEDDING fingers manicured in her chamber's recess, made the observation," Well, I am quite done now . . . if he comes now, he shan't have her, for he was never half good enough for her." But this was only what the fox remarked of the grapes! and, on going downstairs an hour later on Rosie's arm, a telegram which was handed her changed the old lady's temper to the opposite pole; the telegram being in the words: " O'Shannon says will arrive in time for wed- ding; earnestly begs you go to church. Davis." So what was now to be done? That was hard for the wit of woman to argue out ! for though Mrs. Gordridge gladly rushed from despair into elation — who was this " Davis "? No one knew at all! All that one could say of him was that his wire derived from Winchester. And why, if O'Shannon actually meant to come, could he not wire himself? What could bind him? Anne Hine was certain that the whole business of the wire was a hoax, akin to the anonymous letters; of a like view were Dr. Blood, Mr. Orrock, Mr. Cochrane; and in the council which lasted for hours into the afternoon they all argued roundly against Mrs. Gordridge's faith in the telegram; in vain, however: for when the clock struck two, she, too, struck her stick on the floor, and said: SHAN VANISHED 133 " Come, let us go, as he begs us to: it will be lucky to be actually in the church, waiting, and then he will come." " Ah, he is sure to, Aunt, since you say so," murmured Anne Hine: " but to go and wait in vain will be very distressing." " Oh, timorous people always believe there's a lion in the way," pshawed Mrs. Gordridge: " let us venture to go, and one's very boldness will bring him. He knew that the wedding was fixed for two o'clock, and he is conscious that one can't be married after three, so that's his motive for enjoining us to be at the altar, so as to avoid delay when he comes. He will come, if we go." " There is, however, no train for him to get here by between now and three," observed the clergyman. " Ah, Mr. Orrock, do not argue with Aunt Margaret," sighed Anne Hine, " since she is sure to be right." " I am only sorry to be the occasion of all this care, I'm sure," now remarked Rosie with a saucy pout, seated near her mama all in silvery grey with a great white hat, waiting to be a wife. " Never mind," said Mrs. Gordridge, kissing 134 THE WHITE WEDDING her cheek, " don't be angry with your mama: he'll come." " But even if he is coming," said Dr. Blood, " why not postpone the wedding for one day—?" " No, thank you," replied the old lady: " there never was a postponed wedding that didn't end in misery: either he has her to-day, or he never has her. So, come: he'll come. The man is keen to be married, and therefore will be: come." She stood up, and within two minutes the carriages were off through the drizzle, to meet round St. Jude's a great crowd from far and near, whom Morgan could hardly induce to keep off the bright carpet spread for the bride's steps, many of whom, even when they had invaded the nave behind the bridal train, still found themselves crowded out in the rain. And now in the chancel itself that stout heart of Mrs. Gordridge began to falter within her, and had in it the thought " be bold, be bold, be not too bold "; nor, when it became half-past two, and no news yet of Shan, could she any longer endure to sit tamely there regarding the gaunt laughs and shrugs and giggling shoulder of Rosie and her bridesmaids, but stole away into SHAN VANISHED '35 the sacristy, where, as in hiding, she sat shame- facedly facing Mrs. Orrock's shame. However, she had not been ten minutes seated there, when with a beaming countenance she was bounding out of her chair, breathing: " Thank heaven! just as I said . . .!" for old Pruie, a flurry of palish flesh, was there before her with the news: " Mr. O'Shannon, mum! at the cottage dressing — ! " and Pruie had barely spoken, when in broke Anne Hine, saying very excitedly (for her): " Aunt, O'Shannon is now running down the village-street ! . . . You are always right, dear Aunt> and I must always henceforth measure men by your standards." i36 IX SHAN AND SONGS IN THE NIGHT THERE, then, all among the palms of the altar, before ever the old church-clock groaned three, was Rosie united to her perspiring bridegroom by Mr. Orrock, who afterwards at the lunch asserted, to Dr. Blood's annoyance, that " the main functions of a clergyman were, after all, to be a joiner and an mgraver": and before God they were joined. As for Rosie, in what way she passed that day, in what world she roamed, she could never afterwards remember, for it is no fun to carle or girl (with only one life) to be married for the first time, and the Burgundy with the pheas- ants made all whirl in her girl's-brain; but all went off bravely enough without her conscious- ness, for throughout the afternoon into night the marriage-bells were breaking out into brabblings; when it was dark a bonfire blazed on the tump of the Morplepiece; and left alone with Anne Hine, Mrs. Gordridge said then, gratified: " Well, it went off very well: Rosie Jones is married: and O'Shannon is just the man SHAN 6f SONGS IN THE NIGHT 137 that I should have chosen as the ideal husband for her." "Ah! but Arthur when he hears!" sighed Anne Hine: " for I am still convinced of a compact between O'Shannon and Arthur, only poor O'Shannon's back broke under it." " All gammon," replied Mrs. Gordridge; " I have told you that Utopia is a curio for cranks, not usual in Europe; anyway, Arthur won't be getting to hear of the marriage for — months, it begins to seem, with these Boers fighting like fiends." " But if there was a compact," said Anne, poor Arthur will be fighting on the strength of it, and then he will come home with the D.S.O. to claim his reward, only to find his bride shaking up fat baby O'Shannon in her arms." " Poor Arthur, it is rather rough on him," admitted Mrs. Gordridge: " but, after all, he lost her in fair duello, and the Gordridges always did beg for a stronger head than theirs to check and rescue them." Anne nibbled a taste of cake-ice in silence, living on air, but delighting in tiny clandestine tit-bits that she nibbled like a cat; and presently she sighed: "So Shan O'Shannon broke down. . . 138 THE WHITE WEDDING Human nature is a poor old pork-pie; but ah, Aunt, I don't mind admitting now that if this fellow had only proved true to Arthur, I might have lost what I call my heart to a man." " Oh, you call it your heart," muttered the old lady; " never mind, my poor Donna Quixote, some other mirage painted on haze will arise some day to entice your admiration. " " You call it quixotic because the man earns wages," answered Anne, " but the heart is a red republican, pale as the red may be. We are all alike diseased with the need to ' desire and admire,' and those of us formed with robust digestions desire bullock's flesh and rosy-rich squires, and those formed with sicklier gorges have their greeds tickled by mirages and sunset gauds, and the kindred glories of the souls of heroes. We are things who crave and hate as we are made to: there's nothing quixotic in Nature." "What about the Gordridge males?" asked Mrs. Gordridge; and she added: "knowing them as I do, it is a marvel that I didn't foresee when I adopted Rosie that Arthur would be going gushing some day after such a sugar as the child was — but then people never do foresee anything, except crops." SHAN fc? SONGS IN THE NIGHT 139 " We foresee, but are not too deeply concerned about our future self," answered the analytic Anne, " and so leave it to fish for itself." " Anyhow, it is all over now," said Mrs. Gordridge, " and Rosie Jones has turned out a good dutiful girl, doing without a murmur whatever I told her in all this marriage and China how-de-do, for she has some nous and sense in the pretty nut, c/a se voit. ... I should imagine that she has arrived now. . . ." Rosie, however, at that hour was still travel- ling, though now close to Clovelly; and remote, each in a corner of her compartment, sat she and Shan without speech, till Rosie remarked: " Well, you have got what you wanted now, yet I don't know that you look irrepressibly gay over it"; upon which Shan, rising from depths of reverie, looked at his bride, and he sighed, saying: " You little know, Rosie: they are not far out those who say that ' there is a peace which the world cannot give.' ' " But — isn't it precisely ' the world ' that has given me to you?" " Yes, but it isn't quite you that I am thinking of now," observed Shan. Now the bride's brows prettily puckered, and she answered with " side ": "I fear it requires THE WHITE WEDDING some sublimer mind than mine to pursue you in your higher flights." " You will some day, dear," he said softly. " What I see and say at present is that there's one certain star in the sky that's sparklinger than all the rest, though all are sparkling, aye, and one certain lark in the Spring prattling prettier than all the rest — thank God for that." At this the bride's left eyebrow cynically waved in despair of comprehending her spouse, for from the moment when they had found themselves alone in the train till now; he had proved foreign to her understanding; and she cast off her stole, for it was close in the compart- ment, and she flung open her mink coat with a jangling of things of gold hung at her wrist, and turned the leaves of her Graphic; and his eye- corners saw her lips split and reveal her pearls when what was comic in the paper tickled her, saw her face framed in her hair that was fri- volous and buffo in front, though behind on her neck there was a gross club to it that was tidy, and her face framed in it looked so suave, like a dove in a grove, and the eyes so large and arch, she looked like winking at one almost, and her bit of a chin had a knob to it like the tump of the Morplepiece, and it broadened and stretched, SHAN & SONGS IN THE NIGHT 141 everything stretched easily, firmly, like gutta- percha, when she grinned at what was droll, and her bit of a nose turned up a bit: she was more like a picture-postcard, with an actress in colours on it, than like the ordinary bits of girl- flesh going about, she that was sprung out of peasant stock, too: it was wonderful. With such thoughts Shan eyed her with his eye-corners furtively, till presently, glancing up, she asked him: " Did my Mama Gordridge question you to-day as to your queer disappear- ance last week?" " Yes, she wanted to know," said Shan. " Well, you haven't volunteered the infor- mation to me, but naturally, being related to Eve, I am dying. Where were you?" " Oh, a fairish way off." "A secret?" " Not so very much of a secret." " Then, I am all ears." " No, you are partly eyes as well, and you know it, too, don't you, by gad." " Don't swear over it." " No, I said ' gad.' " " Better say Asher in order to be above sus- picion. . . . But I am all ears — and eyes." " Not omitting the bit of a nose." i42 THE WHITE WEDDING " Nor even the two bits of a mouth.." But as she said this, Shan, from leaning keenly toward her, sat up sharply and rubbed a round of vapour from his pane to look out at Devon dart- ing darkly past him. " Is the task of forming your manners, too, among those reserved for me?" asked Rosie. Shan span sharply round anew toward her, asking: " What can I do to please you now?" " I was asking where you were for over a week?" " Are you sure it is 'over'? " " Quite." " Shows how you notice my goings and comings, doesn't it? I couldn't go a step without your hungering after me, could I?" " Do I look pale and gaunt to you? Do I not seem to have taken all my meals? " No, you look pretty plump." " Ah, you see. ... So where have you been?" " Oh, a bit beyond Oxford." " Oxford? whatever for?" " I said ( a bit beyond ': open your ears and you will hear." " They are buried in my hair, that's why a lady can always be a little deaf when she wishes. SHAN &f SONGS IN THE NIGHT 143 Well, it was ' a bit beyond': was it a big bit or a little bit?" " Whom are you getting at? A bit about the size of you." " That all? Why, you could carry it all in your arms " — at which on a sudden Shan muttered something, turning away with shy eyelids. "Well, why a bit beyond Oxford?" Rosie wished to know. " Oh, a bit of business," said Shan. " What, another bit? and what was the business? I'll have it bit by bit, if I can't in one bite." " You won't have it any way, for you are a bit too curious." " Is it a secret, then? Did you tell Mama Gordridge?" " No, I didn't tell Mrs. Gordridge." " Did she ask?" " Yes, she asked." " Tell me." " Oh, everybody going to be married has a bit of business to get through: I won't trouble your head with it "; whereat Rosie remained stiffly silent for some moments, till she said again : " But by what means did you get to Glann- i44 THE WHITE WEDDING court between two and three, since there's no train?" " I bicycled the twenty-five miles from Gloucester," replied Shan; " yes, and I should have been at the church-door a quarter of an hour earlier, only my front tyre broke." " Gloucester?" said she, " I imagined you were at Winchester, whence the wire was sent." " No, I wasn't at Winchester." " Who, then, is this ' Davis ' who sent a wire from Winchester to say that you would be in time?" " Don't you remember James Davis who used to live up on the Chase? That's the same." " So you must have telegraphed to this Davis, telling him to telegraph to Glanncourt — " " That's it." " Whyever didn't you wire direct yourself?" " Curious, aren't you?" " Don't you like them like that?" " I like you! — rather well, that is." "Do you?" " Ah, Rosie." "Well, what?" " I know that you will be the death of me yet." "Why so?" SHAN 6? SONGS IN THE NIGHT 145 " I can see that you will be killing me dead before we're through: but I perceive and see that though you were as sweet as wild honey, there is what is sweeter yet than you." "Why, what's that?" " Rosie, I'll give it into your ear: it is what people call ' the peace of God ' in the heart, Rosie." " Don't swear, say ' Asher.' You are hardly very understandable, Mr. O'Shannon, and I had no idea you were religious before, since you have a reputation among the natives for gallantry. . . . Be good, be good, be not too good. . . . But may be the religion is only a reaction from that roaring Sunday evening two weeks ago, the edifying story of which duly reached my ears. . . . Is it true that you threw Griffiths' necessary nag into the village-well?" Shan sat with shy eyelids silent. "You must be really terribly strong!" she said. "Aye, in the back and limbs, I dare say; but it's the pheasant's head that the guns go for." " You can't be very weak, even in the head, if that be true what you said in the book-room that evening that you haven't kissed a girl since you kissed two one Sunday evening when you were thirteen." 10 146 THE WHITE WEDDING " What, you remember my saying that?" " But is it quite true?" " True enough: for very soon after that I started to fix my heart upon you, you see, where it has been fixed ever since; and that, and the wild-fowl, and the night-winds somehow, have kept me wilding and sound betwixt them." " Well," said Rosie, and now, her pretty grin going out, her face was grave, " I am glad of that, for I'll tell you now, Shan, that I am not such a goose to be altogether indifferent to what you are, or are not, in yourself, since I have to wear your ring on my finger, after all. Of course, some girls in my place would be crass enough to hate and spurn the sight of you, as I was nearly doing, for I have been having my little interior whirled in such a dream — ah, dear Lord, you can't fancy it ! — it was pretty stiff; and it was you that shattered it. But it wasn't your fault, for it was not to be, it could never have been, the thing was a great deal too thundering grand to happen. So, though you are not likely to be under any delusions with regard to my sentiments toward you, for a girl's soul can love only once in a lifetime, you know, still I don't dislike you. My mama, but for whom I might have been a peasant, quite like yourself, I suppose, has seen SHAN